


Extraneous

by SeeMaree



Series: The Lesser Victor [3]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Book/Movie 2: Catching Fire, Canon Compliant, F/M, POV Peeta Mellark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-28 07:00:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 32,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2723075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeMaree/pseuds/SeeMaree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Extraneous: not belonging; unrelated to that which it is added; irrelevant<br/>It describes Peeta perfectly.  He's the extra victor, the one that no one really needs.<br/>Peeta struggles to find his place after surviving the Hunger Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome

Welcome Home. 

That's what everyone says.

Some welcome. His family is stiff and cold and his friends won't even meet his eyes. He wonders which is more horrifying to them, that he's a killer, or that he loves a seam girl.

All Peeta wants is to be alone. Instead they are are forced though a series of social events. Every one involved seems to hate it, which makes it worse. If some of them were having fun then at least he could feel like he was enduring it all for a reason. 

Everdeens and Mellarks are two families that shouldn't be forced to socialize. Little Prim tries at first, but is quickly cut down by Peeta's mother. Her insults are wrapped in underhanded compliments. She's really does have quite a way with words. 

Peeta has never really thought about it before but he probably inherited his glib tongue from her. He certainly didn't get it from his dad, the man barely speaks at all.

The idea is not a pleasant one. Peeta has always viewed himself as singular. He knows he physically resembles his father, but years of being an outcast in his own family has made the idea of "not like them" a basic part of his self image. As a small child he had often longed to fit, but as he got older he had been proud of his differences too.

Now he was seeing pieces of himself in them and it worried him. Would he become passive like his father? Cruel like his mother? Selfish like his brothers?

Katniss was driving him crazy too. Even though she has made her lack of feelings for him clear they still have to play the happy couple for the Capitol. It's a strange form of torture. Because even though it's fake he can't help but enjoy it. They hold hands and kiss and even knowing the truth sometimes it still feels real. Not the kisses. But the way she grabs his hand like it's the most natural thing in the world. How she leans into him a little when she gets nervous. She's clinging like she doesn't want to let him go. 

His mind keeps going over what she said. "Not all of it." His treacherous heart wants to read all sorts of hopeful things into that. He can't do that to himself again. 

It's clear that she still finds comfort in his touch, so maybe she now sees him like a sort of a brother? Which is just lovely. A pseudo sister that he kisses on camera and has lustful thoughts about. He feels guilty and dirty for savoring each unwilling kiss. He needs to spend some time away from her. He can't bear being separated from her. He doesn't know what he wants, but it always involves her.

Standing on the platform and seeing off the last of the capitol people Peeta feels a weight lift off him. He turns to Katniss and tugs on his hand when she doesn't immediately release it. She grips him a littler harder before she stills and snatches her hand away. She blushes a little and quickly shoves her hands into her pockets.

"I guess I'll see you around" she says. Her eyes are shimmering with some emotion, but Peeta doesn't have the energy left to deal with her.

"You know where I live if you want to see me" he replies. His mothers words on his lips. He winces. "I mean you're welcome to come by any time." She just stares at him for a moment. 

"Okay. Bye." And then she's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there are many many fics about what was going on with Peeta between the the games and the victory tour, so I hope I have something new enough to say.  
> Let me know what you think.


	2. Family

Peeta barely leaves his bed for a week after the cameras leave. Nobody seems to notice. 

Initially it was the pain radiating from his leg that kept him horizontal. The doctors had advised him to stay off it as much as possible for at least six weeks, and then blithely sent him off to stand and walk constantly. By the time it was all over he could barely hobble back to his house and collapse. He couldn't even make it up the stairs for two days. 

By the time he was able to get to his bed the swelling and pain had receded quite a bit. But staying in bed was good. What did he have to get up for? He has nothing to do, no where to go and no one to see. So he just dozes and watches the patterns of light and shadow creep across the walls and ceiling. Occasionally he gets up to eat something standing in front of the open refrigerator. 

Mostly he just sleeps. The dreams are bad though. He sees Katniss die a thousand ways. Sometimes she kills him, but the worst are the ones where he kills her. So it's not surprising when he wakes to a figure leaning over the bed his first instinct is attack. 

He has the man pinned to the floor with his arm across his throat before he recognizes the terrified face of his brother Tomas. Peeta first thought is a wish for a knife. His second is that if he had a knife his brother would be dead.

He shoves away and takes some deep breaths. 

"Don't ever do that again."

"What the hell is with you? I was just trying to wake you up!"

"I don't know, maybe its because the last time I woke up with someone standing over me it's because they wanted to kill me!" He knows he's said to much when his brother stares at him in horror. His family has refused to acknowledge that Peeta may have any issues from the games. So he is shocked when Tomas mutters an apology.

"Just don't do it again. I don't want to kill you."

They go downstairs. The house is large and echoingly empty. Peeta had thought about inviting his family to live with him but in the end he decided that the only thing worse than being utterly alone was living with his mother. 

Peeta pours drinks for them and they sit at the table in silence. Conversation has never flowed naturally between them. Without the framework of baking together Peeta can't find anything to say at all. So he just waits.

Finally Tomas clears his throat.

"This is, um, this stuff is good. What is it?" So they're going to do small talk.

"It's orange juice." More silence. And then Peeta can't help himself. "They ship it in by the case. Any time you want to come over you can have some." Did he just try to bribe his brother to visit with orange juice? Is he that desperate? Apparently so. Because when a grin spreads across Tomas' face an answering one is one Peeta's. "You really want me to visit?" Then Tomas shifts his eyes down. "You won't after I tell you why I'm here." It hurts. For a brief moment Peeta had believed that someone in his before life cared enough to just come and check on him.

More silence. "So... You gonna tell me?"

Tomas refuses to met his eyes. "Mother sent me to remind you that you promised to come to dinner."

Oh. That. Mellark family time. Yay.

"Okay fine. Let's go." May as well get it over with.

"Uh, don't take this the wrong way, but you look like hell, and you don't smell much better. You need a bath and a shave." Shave? Peeta runs his hand across his jaw. He had forgotten about shaving. He feels a surge of resentment. Why should he clean up for people who barely care if he exists? But then Tomas adds "Don't want people thinking you're weak." Peeta and his brothers may not talk much but they are experts at the subtle warning. Peeta understands this one immediately. He cannot show weakness to his mother. 

His brother has, oddly enough gotten up and is looking through the kitchen cupboards. "What are you doing?"

"I was just going to get the water going. Where do you keep the big kettle?" Peeta has no idea if he even has a big kettle. But that really doesn't matter at this moment.

"Tomas, you don't need to boil water. It comes out of the tap hot." 

His brother's awe at watching water run into the bath tub is funny. Peeta smiles for the first time in a week.

His good mood doesn't last long. He knows what his mother wants. Money. Since he got home she has been grumbling about what a hardship they've had without him at the bakery, what a trial it's been for her to take his shifts as well as her own, and what is he going to do about it. She managed to imply that Peeta had been on a nice relaxing vacation, but now it was time to get back to work. 

 

Dinner table conversation is stilted. It's just Peeta, Tomas and their parents. Dayvid's fiance had aged out, and they hadn't seen Peeta's reaping as any reason to postpone the wedding. Peeta has only seen him once since he got back. 

His mother dances around the topic of money, but Peeta refuses to take her baits. Finally she comes out with it.

"Peeta, now all the foolishness is done you'll be back at work tomorrow." It's a statement not a question. 

"I won't be coming back." He tries to look confident, but he's trembling inside.

His mother's hand darts out and grabs his arm. He can feel her nails digging into him. 

"You owe me" she hisses. Peeta looks at her hand and thinks about how easy it would be to just break her wrist. Just grab on and snap it. And he looks at her. Really looks. This woman has been the monster of his childhood, but looking at her now she looks... fragile, old. A tiny bird of a woman, he could kill her so easily. He's been bigger than her since he was twelve years old. And yet here she is. Thinking she can force him to do whatever she wants. 

His habit is to cower and give in. But that's all it is. A habit. Because he's not afraid of her anymore. It's such a surprising and liberating feeling he starts to laugh.

"Owe you? I suppose I do." He pries her hand off his arm, careful not to injure her, he's not a monster. "If it hadn't been for all your training I would have died in the arena. You taught me how to lie and manipulate, how to make myself seem weak until it was time to attack, and how to suffer and still keep going. So thanks." 

They all gape at him. The things she did to them have always been the elephant in the room, so huge but never spoken of. And yet he had.

"Don't speak to your mother that way. Show some respect." Peeta stares at his father with a sense of betrayal. He knows his father is a weak man. He has never acted to protect his children, but this, this is worse.

"Respect. You think she deserves respect." Peeta is done. Done with all of them. Without another word he stands up and walks out.

He's half way back to victors village, moving slowly since his leg is starting to hurt again, when he hears footsteps coming up behind him rapidly. He tenses for an attack but then he hears his brother's voice.

"Peeta, wait. Please."

He sighs and turns to look at him.

"You're out of her league. You always have been. You were the one she could never break. And now, well she's scared and trying to put you in your place." What? "She doesn't even want you to come back to work. She just wants your money." Oh. So back to that. Mother's errand boy again. 

Peeta sighs and runs his hand over his head. He knows his absence does create a hardship, and most of the burden falls on his brothers. They have never been close, but he still has no desire to make them suffer.

"I'll pay the wages to hire someone to fill in for me, and I'll come in a couple of days a week to do any fancy work that you guys can't handle." It was the offer he had intended to make anyway. 

"I didn't come after you to beg. I just wanted to tell you what you said was awesome. I wish I had the guts to stand up to her like that." He frowns. "You don't have to give them money. You don't really owe them anything. Especially after that." Tomas actually looks angry.

"I know. But I don't want to punish you and Dayvid either. So just tell them you talked me into it and you can have someone to do the 3am shift."

Tomas thinks for a moment. "Okay. If that's what you want, I won't say no to getting someone to hand all the worst jobs to. Thanks." He starts to walk away but then turns back. "Um, so is the offer still open?"

"What offer?"

"To come over for orange juice."

Peeta thinks about it. They have never been friends. They don't really have anything to talk about. But the house is so empty. And Tomas seems to be the only person that has actually tried to help him since he has gotten home.

"Okay, come over when you want." His brother's grin is blinding. It feels good.

But by the time he shuffles back to the house he is exhausted. Going back to bed and staying there for a few more days seems like a good idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is Tomas. The one member of Peeta's family that actually seems to care about him. You can get a bit of his point of view in Brotherhood, so please go and check it out, and then let me know what you think of him. He's the first character I've really had to create from nothing, so I'm a bit nervous.


	3. Katniss

Peeta can't shower. 

His wonderful limb enhancing prosthetic has no traction on the wet tile. He tries anyway and slips, landing painfully across the raised entry ledge. He shouldn't care so much. It's just a shower. He bathed in a tub his entire life before going to the capitol. So taking baths from now on is fine.

It's just a shower and he can't even manage that. He lies on the floor too numb and empty to even cry. He wonders what Katniss would think if she saw him now, too pathetic to even get up and dry off. Would she regret bothering to save him? Sometimes he wishes she hadn't.

His life feels so pointless. He's in this grey space where nothing seems to matter. He wonders if anyone would notice if he died. Well besides Tomas.

Tomas had started showing up every few days after the disastrous family dinner. Peeta isn't sure why. They have nothing to say to each other really. Mostly Peeta just gives him permission to go through the fridge and cupboards and eat. Peeta kind of enjoys his enthusiasm. He wishes he could get excited about food. It all tastes the same now.

He does make Peeta get out of bed. Though he doesn't move far. But lounging on the back porch is apparently preferable to being found in bed at three in the afternoon. Peeta even remembers why he chose this house. So he could watch the sunset.

It's where he is one morning when he hears Tomas running and calling his name frantically. His heart starts pounding and he rushes to meet him. He knows Snow made threats. Has something happened? Is someone dead?

He sees Tomas. He's doubled over panting.

"Peeta, Peeta. It's Katniss." That's when the real panic sets in. Something has happened to Katniss. No. No. 

He tries to run, but it's more of a quick hobble, stupid stupid leg. When he reaches the front of his his house he realises that he doesn't know where to go. He looks around wildly for Tomas but he didn't follow. He is starting to hyperventilate when he sees her. 

Haymitch is dragging her down the road from town. And she doesn't look hurt. More furious really.

Peeta is so relieved that he half falls, half sits down on the grass. He puts his head in his hands and takes a few deep breaths.

"Peeta!" He pops his head up as she comes racing toward him. And then she's on him, knocking him backward onto the grass, hugging him and running her hands through his hair, and he has no idea what is going on but it feels good.

"What is going on?" He finally manages to choke out. Katniss pulls back to look at him.

"I meant it. I will kill her." What?

His confusion must be clear on his face because Haymitch puts in "Sweetheart is just feeling a bit protective."

"He knows what happened" Katniss snaps "he was right there."

"Actually he wasn't. That was me." Haymitch and Katniss' heads swivel to look at Tomas. Katniss glances between Tomas and Peeta a few times and then she suddenly pushes away from Peeta.

"Well she can't touch him anymore either!" She yells at Haymitch. And then face bright red she dashes into her house, leaving the others staring after her.

"Please can someone tell me what's going on?" Peeta finally begs.

Haymitch smirks. "I told you. Sweetheart there was just feeling a bit protective. It seems she was in the bakery and took issue with how your lovely mother was interacting with your brother here."

Peeta is still confused. He looks to Tomas. "What he means is that Katniss saw mother hitting me with a spoon and jumped the counter to pin her to the wall and threaten to kill her." Peeta's mouth falls open in shock.

"What? Why would she do that?" 

Haymitch sighs theatrically. "She just had one of her little moments. Just like how she tried to attack the doctors who were working on you after the games." When Peeta still stares blankly Haymitch shakes his head. "Don't you get it? She thought he was you."

Peeta looks to Tomas for confirmation. He nods his head. "I had my back to her." He grins. "I think mom is officially terrified. She did ban the Everdeens from the bakery for life though."

"Good." Haymitch rumbles. "Give this one a reason to pull himself out of his funk and start baking for us. I'll be expecting fresh bread within the week boy." Then he shambles into his house.

Later as Peeta sits on his porch, half listening to Tomas' enthusiastically tell the story, he feels something. Is it hope? Maybe people would care if he was dead. Maybe he's not as alone as he thinks.

He looks at Tomas, eating peanut butter with a spoon. He hopes his brother is here for more than the food. He hopes that Haymitch cares about him for more than bread. And he hopes that Katniss was motivated by more than just games trauma when she jumped that counter.

Yes. This feeling is hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have always wanted Katniss to go head to head with Peeta's mother, and I think it's entirely plausible that she would see her hitting someone who looked like Peeta and just react on instinct.  
> And I think Katniss is at her best when she is protecting the people she loves.  
> Let me know if this is still feeling canon.


	4. Bread

If there's one thing Peeta knows how to do it's make bread. 

Apparently not.

He has a starter that Tomas smuggled out of the bakery. This culture has been a treasured possession of the Mellark family since before the dark days. A sample of it should have come to Peeta when he moved to his own home. He's certain that a jar of it was included in his oldest brother's wedding gifts. 

But of course his mother had refused him when he asked for some. Which is really unfair. She's only a Mellark by marriage. She has no right to control his inheritance.

It's not like it's a finite resource. It doubles every twelve hours. But she knows he will be baking for Katniss. His father is no help of course. But Tomas was willing to risk it. Peeta's still not sure why he's hanging around, but he's grateful for the starter.

The rest should have been easy.

It wasn't.

The dough didn't rise the same. And the baking. Uh. 

He has never used an electric oven. The ovens at the bakery were heated with wood. They got a special allotment. (which he had never questioned before but it seemed so stupid now, to have wood shipped in when they were surrounded by forest. Stupid Capitol rules.) He didn't know what temperature to set it to. Really hot didn't appear to be an option.

He tried the highest temperature, and then lower. Longer rests, more kneading. He tried everything he could think of. Nothing worked. The bread just wasn't right.

Peeta has one skill, one thing that makes him useful to Katniss. One thing from his old life that he can still do with one leg. And he's a failure at it. He is so angry and frustrated with himself, the bread. His fancy useless oven.

Then the plate with his current loaf is hitting the wall with a satisfying smash. He follows it with a bowl filled with rising dough. Why bother baking it? It's not going to be any good.

His hand is reaching for the jar filled with the precious starter when the door slams and he is faced with Haymitch.

Ignoring the shattered dishes he demands "I'm here for my bread. Which loaf is mine?"

Peeta looks at the failures he has laid across the kitchen counter.

"Choose for yourself. They're all bad."

Haymitch serenely selects a loaf and cuts a slice. Butters it. Takes a bite. Then contemplates it for so long that Peeta can't take it anymore.

"You don't have to try to think of something polite to say, I know it's awful."

Haymitch smirks at him. "Since when do I worry about saying the polite thing? It's not your best work I agree. I'm just trying to figure out why."

Peeta fists his hands in his hair. "I don't know why! The dough takes so long to rise, this oven is weird, I can't get a good crust, and I just don't understand why I can't bake bread anymore!"

Haymitch nods, as if confirming something important and turns away. "Well I guess that's it then. Come on." Bemused Peeta follows Haymitch back to his house. He hasn't been inside it before and he is unprepared for the smell and the mess. He gasps and then regrets it as it draws more of the stench into his body.

"I don't have much interest in housekeeping." Haymitch states. Peeta doesn't doubt him.

And then they step into the study. It's hard to believe it's in the same house. The room is a little dusty but it has none of the filth that pervades the other rooms. And it's full of books. Floor to ceiling. Piled across the floor. Peeta has never seen so many books before.

"You have more books than the library at school." Peeta says, awed. Haymitch shrugs, looking a little embarrassed. 

"I have a lot of time to fill. Here." He shoves a stack of books into Peeta's hands. 

The Bread Builders.  
Build Your Own Pizza Oven.  
An Introduction to Sourdough Baking.  
Classic Sourdoughs.

"What's Pizza?" He says, stupidly. Of all the questions he has jumping around in his head that's what he asks?

"It's a kind of bread, with cheese and stuff." Haymitch gestures vaguely. "They have it in the Capitol. I'm sure there's a recipe in there."

"Why do you have books about baking? Do you make bread?" The thought of Haymitch rolling up his sleeves and kneading bread on his filthy counters is kind of disturbing.

Haymitch shakes his head. "I never cook anything if I can help it. I just get curious. Haven't you ever been curious about what makes bread rise? Exactly what makes it do what it does?"

Actually Peeta has. No one has ever been able to explain it properly, his father seemed to have no interest, and it wasn't coal related, so it hadn't been a subject covered at school. He looks at the books with new eagerness.

"Thank you so much! I'll take good care of them, and get them right back to you when I'm done..." Haymitch waves him away.

"Keep em kid. Just get me some decent bread some time soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really into bread. So I thought pretty hard about some of the details in this chapter.  
> I started to explain all my reasoning here, but it got too long. So if you're curious I am posting it on my tumblr IamSeeMaree.  
> If you like having the extra explanations please let me know because I often want to discuss my plotting choices or details that I've researched in more depth. So if it interests you lovely readers I will start putting all my thoughts down there.


	5. Brothers

Building an oven is fascinating. Peeta has never built a physical structure before. The instructions in the books seem clear enough and one call to Effie had the supplies he needed shipped in. He eagerly began the work, putting in long days. When he gets exhausted he can sleep for two or three hours before having a nightmare.

It feels good to make something. Something useful and positive. He doesn't feel so much like a killer.

When Tomas shows up Peeta waves him off. He wants to do this for himself. He doesn't notice the hurt look on Tomas' face.

Tomas doesn't leave. He just hangs around. He's offering suggestions, trying to help, generally making a pest of himself. He starts getting on Peeta's nerves. Doesn't his annoying brother have something else to do? Someone else to bother? Peeta is trying to do something important. Why is he constantly being interrupted?

Finally he snaps "What do you want? I told you. You can have whatever you want."

"I'm not here for the food Peeta!" Peeta freezes. Braces himself for an attack. There's something angry in his tone. It's aggressive. It makes Peeta tense. He's being stupid. It's just his brother. Peeta hates what he has become. Startling at the slightest thing.

"Then what is it that keeps bringing you back. I know it's not me." When they are together he and Tomas barely speak. 

"I'm here because I want to help." 

"I already told you. I don't need your help. I want to build this myself."

"I'm not talking about your stupid oven. I'm talking about you. I'm worried about you." 

Peeta doesn't believe him. Mellark's don't worry about each other. They're more the pretend not to notice the beating happening in the next room type of family, rather than the concerned about each others mental health type. Growing up Tomas had been kind in passing. He had helped Peeta more than anyone else in their messed up family. But that wasn't saying much. So it's hard to believe that all these visits are really motivated by affection and not free exotic food.

The long pause must say it all because Tomas finally adds quietly "I really do want to help you. It's the least I can do since I couldn't even volunteer for you."

Peeta gasps "I never expected..."

"I know. Oh I know." Tomas cuts in. "Even after the heroism of Katniss Everdeen no one expected me to volunteer.

"Not one single person asked me why I didn't or even suggested I should have. What does that say about me? What does it make me when my baby brother is carried off to die and no one, not even him ever questions why I didn't take his place?"

Peeta can't respond. He doesn't know how. He had no idea that Tomas was thinking any of this.

"I was just too afraid." Tomas finally mutters. "I was scared and I stood there doing nothing and then it was too late." He stares at his hands.

"I was happy when you came home. I told myself that this was all for the best. You're rich, you've got the girl of your dreams and it all turned out great. But it's not great. They cut off your leg and you're so sad you can barely get out of bed half the time and the rest of the time you're crazy and angry, you and Katniss are never together and I'm just so sorry." When he finally looks up Peeta can see the tears in his eyes. "Can you ever forgive me?" 

"I didn't think you cared. I didn't think anyone did." His whole life he's been the worthless one. Why would his brother even think he should give up his life for someone so unneeded?

Tomas shakes his head. "Haven't you noticed? I've always known I was the expendable one. There was Dayvid, the favorite, the heir, and there was you, the huge talent, so good at everything. And then there was me. Trying to get by, but basically useless." This portrayal of Peeta in comparison to his brothers is so crazy he's struck dumb for a moment.

"What do you mean? I was always the one no one wanted. The one who didn't belong. The one mom beat and dad pitied and that you two ignored."

"No! you've always been the best of us. You were the one she couldn't break and she hates you for that. Dayvid always did what ever she wanted, and I just tried to be invisible. But you. You never let her own you, you were always so stubborn and brave. I remember you covering for me, and taking beatings for me. I was a coward who let my little brother protect me. I've always let you down. The reaping was just the worst time."

Peeta doesn't know what to say. He can't really believe all of this. It would mean everything he thought about his childhood was wrong. So he just puts his arms around his brother and then they're both crying and no one has to say anything.

"I wouldn't have volunteered for you either, if that makes you feel any better." Peeta says after a while.

Tomas lets out a startled laugh. "I does actually."

They sit in silence watching the sun drop down below the horizon. 

"I just want to help. Please just tell me how I can help." Tomas says finally.

"You do help. If you hadn't started showing up I'd probably still be in bed."

Tomas huffs in annoyance. "I want to do more than show up and make you get out of bed and so I can eat your food. You're strong. You don't really need me for that any more. What do you really need help with?"

Half an hour ago Peeta had a brother who showed up occasionally to sponge off him and feel mildly sorry for him. Now he has one who cares about him, thinks he's a hero and wants to help him any way he can.

Tomas is giving plenty.

He tells Tomas to go home. Peeta knows he's not giving his brother the answers he needs, but he's exhausted and needs some time to think. Having your entire world view flipped takes some time to process.

When they hug goodbye it's different. Not like the stiff embrace when Peeta first got home, or the shared pain from earlier. It's a good hug, that says they are glad the other is there. It's hugging someone you love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a hard one to write. I am terrible at dialogue anyway, but writing emotionally charged dialogue is even worse. So hopefully it didn't come off as too overwrought.  
> I am basing the sibling relationship here on classic birth order characteristics, and observation of my own three sons. (before anyone asks I kinda do have a little Peeta Mellark kicking around my house, or rather what I imagine Peeta would be like without the abuse). Let me know if the way they feel about each other seems realistic.


	6. Ready-Set-Go

"Brrr. You two have got a lot of warming up to do before show time." 

Katniss scowls at Haymitch and refuses to meet Peeta's eyes.

When she's gone Peeta turns to Haymitch exasperated. "Well that was helpful. Now she won't even look at me."

"You told me you'd deal with this! You said you'd talk to her before the tour." Haymitch snaps. "Yet here you are more wooden than ever."

"I know, I just... I just haven't had the chance." It's a lame excuse. He's had plenty of chances. But he's heard the rumors around town. Talk that his own mother is actively promoting. That she had rejected him because she was repulsed by his artificial leg. That she was slipping off to the woods each Sunday to do more than hunt with Gale. With each whisper he felt himself reverting back to that boy who spent eleven years crushing on a girl that he was too afraid to speak to, sure he could never be good enough for her.

Haymitch makes a hrumphing sound and stumbles up stairs. Peeta watches him to make sure he gets to the top safely, and then goes home.

He is surprised to find Tomas sitting in his kitchen eating powdered milk straight from the bag. "Shouldn't you be at work?"

Tomas smirks. "I convinced them it would look bad if you didn't have any of your family here to see them off." And Tomas was the only one who could be bothered. It should hurt but Peeta is just glad he doesn't have to deal with the others.

After Tomas' big outburst things had been uncomfortable between them. There were so many things that Peeta had wanted to know, questions about their family and himself. But the words just wouldn't come.

What had finally broken the ice was Peeta's oven. Baking is something Peeta and Tomas have done together their entire lives. The only time they ever really talked. And like magic, once their hands were kneading dough they can finally talk to each other. Just about the bread at first. They read the books from Haymitch, discussed them. What is making Peeta's bread rise slower, what makes a good crust, how hot the oven should be.

But then it's more. They skirt around the tougher topics, like the games and their family. But they talk. Slowly they started to become friends.

Tomas has a odd ability to figure out what makes people tick, he can break down a persons entire inner workings to a few sentences. Which is often hilarious. And also which is why Peeta dodged talking to him about Katniss for so long. He didn't want to hear Tomas say that his mother was right. But finally he had broken down and asked.

"I saw her come flying across the counter and threaten to put an arrow through mother's eye, just because she though she was hitting you. Katniss loves you." Tomas had said. It was certainly not what Peeta had been expecting. Hope fluttered in his chest. "Maybe not as a boyfriend, but you are definitely important to her." Oh. But still...

"They why won't she even talk to me?" he'd asked, hating the whiny note that crept into his voice.

"Because idiot. You remind her that she's hurting you every time you see her. And she hates hurting you." 

"What? I do not. How?"

Tomas sighed. "I've seen you. Every time you see her you give these big hurt puppy eyes, like she's taken away your reason for living. It's a lot of pressure on her."

It was a lot to think about. He he hadn't even considered that his feelings were pressuring her. 

"So what should I do?"

"Back off a bit. Whenever you run into her just pretend she's um... Robbie Clemenson." Seriously? Robbie had been on the wrestling team with them. A nice enough guy, but no particular friend of Peeta's. "If you saw Robbie you wouldn't give him sad eyes, you'd just say hello and keep going, if you were both waiting somewhere you would talk a little but not too much, you get the idea. Just treat her like a casual friend. Then maybe you can actually be friends. After that, who knows?"

It made sense. Peeta had tried to put it into practice. And it had worked to a degree. She no longer dodged him so assiduously, sometimes even smiled when they met accidentally. But still, all their interactions remained superficial. And now they have to go straight back to being madly in love for the tour.

"Looking forward to the big trip I see." Tomas says sarcastically. Peeta slumps at the table.

"Haymitch has been playing drunken matchmaker again. He asked Katniss to wake him for the tour too." Over the last month or so Haymitch has taken to trying to force Peeta and Katniss into the same space in the hope that somehow they would just see each other and reconcile instantly. Peeta really hopes that Katniss hasn't figured out what's going on.

"It's going to be fine. You'll talk to her once you're on the train." 

"I don't know why you're so sure of that. I haven't had the guts to say anything for the last few months. How is being on the train going to help?" 

"Because this tour is going to be really hard. She's going to need your support, and you're going to need hers too." Oh. Thinking about it that way really did make a difference. It's not just about Peeta and his bleeding heart. It's about her too. Then Peeta realises what Tomas is doing.

"You are such a manipulator. Stop messing around in my head." 

Tomas just raises his eyebrows. "It's not manipulation if it's true." Peeta's pretty sure it still is.

Before they know it the prep team is on him, followed by the entire circus. The camera crew remembers Tomas from the final eight interviews and fuss over what a great brother he is, making him blush in embarrassment. They make them pose together and coo over how alike they look.

"Yeah even Katniss has trouble telling us apart sometimes." Tomas says with a sly grin. Peeta sends him a warning look as they all clamor for details. Tomas wouldn't. Would he? "Well there was this one time I was working in the bakery, and she came up behind me, and let's just say I didn't know she liked me quite that much." They gasp and giggle. Oh no. 

It's clever, probably a good idea considering the rumors, and every word is true. But wow. Peeta definitely needs to let Katniss know what was implied, just in case they ask her about it. He needs to tell he when they are actually talking again that is. Deep breaths.

Portia must see something in his face (what happened to his Mellark Poker face?) and wisks him off to show his paintings. Soon enough they are filming him and Tomas hugging goodbye and pushing him out the front door to meet Katniss. She knocks him down and for a second Peeta is humiliated, that even with all the work he's done to strengthen himself and learn to use it he still can't function properly with his prosthetic. But then she's looking at him and he can see fear in her eyes. And he knows that Tomas is right. She needs him and he needs her. They can't do this alone. 

Even though the kiss is fake the affection and need in the way they cling together is real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the arc is over, and I'm back to following the book more closely. It seemed odd to me that Haymitch didn't sort them out before the tour, so I figure that he tried, but Katniss ignored him and Peeta wimped out. He does have a long history of doing that after all.  
> Tomas' special Mellark survival skill is discerning peoples motives. Peeta is pretty good at doing that too, but it seems to drop out when his emotions get involved, so I wanted to give him this way to get outside perspective. 
> 
> As always let me know what you think.


	7. Apology

Katniss is in a surly mood the next morning.

When she snaps at Effie and storms off the train Peeta sighs. This is the perfect time to talk to her, but when she's like this who knows how she'll react?

He hesitates a moment longer, until Haymitch glares at him. Perhaps it won't be that bad.

He finds her sitting on the rail not too far from the train.

She snaps at him, and then refuses to look at him. Oh well. May as well just get it out and deal with whatever fallout follows. So he apologizes. He even, around a squeeze in his heart, tries to show he accepts her relationship with Gale. Okay, maybe he's fishing a bit with that, because he still isn't sure exactly what it is between them.

She ignores his comment about Gale. But she does unbend a bit. Feeling encouraged he makes his big speech, the one he's been planning for weeks. About how he understands what she did, and appreciates it, and ends with the big ask. Friendship.

Katniss is silent for a long moment. A really agonizing moment. What if Tomas was wrong, and there really isn't anything between them, just his stupid longing and nothing on her side.

"Okay." she finally says, and Peeta tries to hide his gasp of relief. He wishes he'd just swallowed his embarrassment and done this sooner.

"So what's wrong?" He knows as soon as he says it that it's too much. Whatever it is that's bothering her is something she doesn't want to talk to him about. He wishes things could be like they were before. Back when they could talk to each other. Which was during the games. Can it really be that every good interaction he's had with her has been during the worst experience of his life?

She's scowling down at the ground again, and he just wants to make her smile. So he asks her the silliest question he can think of. And she does smile, and then makes a genuine attempt to engage him by asking about his paintings. Perhaps he can manage to keep his feelings under control, and just work at being friends. 

But then when he offers her a hand up she surprises him by not releasing him, instead she twines their fingers together and rubs her thumb back and forth across his palm, sending shivery tingles up his arm. Why does she do these things? Doesn't she see how hard he's trying to not pressure her with his feelings? He's trying hard to be just friends. This isn't how "friends" hold hands, friends don't hold hands at all as far as he knows. It's like she's been longing for his touch just as much as he has been longing for hers. It feels good, he missed being able to touch her. Confusing and stressful, but good.

Showing her his paintings is hard. It's like opening up his soul and letting her look inside. Plenty of other people have seen them by this point. But nobody who matters as much as Katniss. What if she hates them?

"I hate them" she says, like a slap. But she doesn't let go of him or turn away. He feels the tension in her, as she begins to talk about the games. They've never talked about them. Why bother? They were both there, they know what happened. But talking about the nightmares, it makes him feel a bit less alone. She asks if it helps, to paint them. He's not sure. He just knows that he can only paint what he sees in his head.

"It's better to wake up with a paintbrush than a knife in my hand." He finally says. Much harder to kill your brother that way too. Not impossible, but harder.

And he has to ask. "So do you really hate them?" Stupid ego. Tired of feeling second best to Gale Hawthorne at every single thing. Can't she be a bit impressed?

And she tells him that they are "extraordinary". Interesting word. He supposes that will have to be enough because shes tugging him along the train to the last car. Peeta wonders if she realizes that she hasn't let go of his hand this entire time.

His optimistic mood is dampened as they take in the beginnings of District Eleven. Katniss' fingers are no longer caressing his, they clench tight and Peeta has a very bad feeling about what they have ahead of them here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels a bit like filler to me, so I couldn't seem to work up my usual level of enthusiasm. I hope it doesn't disapoint too much.


	8. Eleven

Katniss looks pale as Effie briefs them for the appearance in Eleven. Peeta pulls her aside after.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

She shakes her head and stares at the floor. He waits her out. 

"I can't do it" she finally mutters. "I can't get up there and talk about Rue." Of course. This is hard enough for him, and he didn't personally know either of them. It must be so much harder for her.

"I've got something planned, so I can just do the talking for both of us." She looks up at him, anxiety still clear on her face. 

"Is that okay? She was my ally, not yours. Her family..." Peeta smiles thinking of what he has planned.

"Just let me go first and then if you feel like something else needs to be said you can add it. Okay?" She nods, looking relieved.

No one has actually said that he can't give away his money. In fact he'd questioned Effie about how to transfer the money under the guise of planning to set up a trust for his future nieces and nephews, and she had said nothing about it being forbidden, she had been quite enthusiastic actually. Would it really be any different to be transferring money for the families of Rue and Thresh? 

Of course it's different. Probably forbidden. He's certainly never heard of a victor giving some of their stipend to the families of the fallen. That's why he doesn't tell anyone until he's at the podium telling the whole country on live television. Peeta looks at the families as he says it, willing them to understand. To understand that he grieves with them, for all of the children that died so he and Katniss can be standing here, and that he needs to do something, particularly for these two who were special, who held on to their honor and humanity right to the end.

When he looks at Katniss he can see she knows. And when she kisses him it feels different. More like the way she kissed him in the cave. More real. It's entirely the wrong time to be thinking about it, but later he's definitely going to be considering this moment.

As they complete the ceremony Katniss keeps glancing toward Rue's family, so Peeta isn't surprised when she interrupts to say her piece. What she says is beautiful, moving, and Peeta doesn't understand why she thinks she's not good at pubic speaking. She moves the crowd in a way he couldn't. The obviously planned farewell salute that they give her in response confirms it. They didn't give Peeta that, they had been saving it for Katniss.

It's when they pull the the old man out of the crowd and kill him that Peeta knows that something has gone terribly wrong.

As Katniss explains everything she's been keeping from him he feels his anger rising. Do they think he's too worthless, too useless to handle the truth? That because he's foolishly in love with Katniss he can be just led around and told what to do? Is he still just some weak, soft merchant to them? He thinks about Tomas, putting his own life aside to spend all his free time trying to bring Peeta back to some semblance of normal. That's who Snow would take from him first, and it's just enraging that Katniss and Haymitch would so blithely risk the life of someone so worthwhile.

It's been like this all along. Haymitch and Katniss have some sort of understanding that he is never included in, and it hurts to be shut out here, from the only people left that he can fit with. He knows he's not Katniss' choice, but to be so clearly disregarded... 

Peeta feels an urge to say the cruelest and most hurtful things to them, to Katniss particularly. He wonders if was things like this that made his mother the way she is, because he certainly feels vindictive right now. He needs to get away before he says something he can't take back. 

Haymitch seems to sense that, because about an hour later he shows up and shoos the preps out to talk to him in private.

"You shouldn't take this all so personally" he says. Really? He shouldn't take being judged as incapable personally? He glares at Haymitch. "Okay, fine, but you need to know it was me, not her withholding things from you. So don't blame her."

"What, are you worried about upsetting the star crossed lovers facade? Trust me I can fake it better than she can." Peeta replies snidely. He really is channeling his mother today.

Haymitch sighs and slumps further down in his chair.

"Look kid, I saw how you two were acting earlier today. You're back to relying on each other, supporting each other. Do you really want to push away the one person you have in this mess because you got your feelings hurt?" Haymitch has a point. But Peeta really doesn't feel like acknowledging that right now.

"Boy I know you hate me right now, but I didn't do this because I hate you or think you're stupid or whatever you're thinking. It's just, you're sixteen. You've been through hell. I'm a crap mentor, but I do want to help you. I'm trying to shield you from as much of this as I can." Peeta still can't meet his eyes.

Haymitch gets up to leave. Then he turns back grinning. "And look on the bright side. Now you know she hasn't been running off to the woods to diddle the Hawthorne boy after all. I think you're further ahead in this game than anyone thought."

Peeta knows exactly what he's talking about. Katniss had guiltily refused to meet his eyes as she related what Snow had threatened her with. How he somehow knew about the time Gale had kissed her in the woods. The way she phrased it made it sound like it was the one and only time. Like it was something that he intiated, not something she had actively participated in.

He'd been too angry about the rest of it to really consider it, but now? He can't stop thinking about it. Just like Haymitch intended the sneaky bastard.

Peeta doesn't see Katniss again until it's time to make their entrance. She looks nervous, scared even. And he knows Haymitch is right. What will he gain by alienating her? He's just been through months of separation from her and it was horrible. And he remembers plotting with Haymitch before the games, is he really so morally superior?

"There's really no point to it anymore though is there? Not being straight with each other?" She says. Peeta agrees. From this point on they need absolute honesty between them. Which brings him back to that little worm Haymitch put in his brain. Did she have a thing going on with Gale Hawthorne or not? He just needs to know. Peeta is as tangled up in this as she is and he should know exactly what he's working with. That's what he tells himself anyway.

That rationalization doesn't stop the burst of exhilaration he feels when she admits that she Gale really have only kissed once. He puts it all together in his head. The way she held his hand yesterday, the way she kissed him so sweet and real just a few hours ago, the way even now she can't seem to maintain the correct formal posture that Effie drilled them on, how instead she leans into him. He doesn't know what is going on in her head. But he knows he has a chance.

In spite of it all, the threat of imminent death for themselves and their loved ones, the stilted "celebration" they are forced to take part in, and the dread of what awaits them in The Capitol, the smile Peeta wears that evening is not just for the cameras.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, as far as I'm concerned Haymitch is busy manipulating them here, with good intentions of course. He knows that united they are stronger and he's doing his best to make that happen. Why did he initally think that Peeta would be better left in the dark? I think he was just trying to preserve that small piece of innocence that was left.


	9. Tour

The victory tour is brutally depressing. Somewhere at the back of Peeta's mind, where he files away all his optimistic thoughts, he had hoped that things weren't so bad in the other districts. That perhaps it was only in District Twelve that people starve to death, or freeze. 

The reality of life in other districts is harsh, often appearing much worse than home. And this is the good parts that they are showing them. The people pushed into the squares to celebrate them look hungry and tired at best, and angry and violent at worst.

It only takes a couple of days for Katniss to begin to crack. Peeta's not doing so well either. Haymitch never seems to be sober, and Effie becomes almost manically cheery. The only good thing about the situation is that the press has been confined to their own carriages at the front of the train, so the pressure of being the star crossed lovers isn't constant.

It's after the ordeal in District Ten Peeta is jolted from a nightmare of Katniss being torn apart by mutts by her screaming for him. Still shaking from his own dream he acts without thinking, climbing into her bed and letting her sob into his chest. Eventually she cries herself back to sleep, and Peeta nods off too. 

He wakes to the sun, feeling actually rested. That was the longest stretch of sleep he's had since the games. Then he remembers where he is. Feels her pressed against him and now Katniss is stirring. She's moving around. Sliding her feet against it. His fake leg. Soon enough she'll wake up and think about what she's touching.

He leaps from the bed, jolting her awake. She smiles at him sleepily. And then she looks down. At it. The prosthetic. The part of him that is so visibly lacking.

"I'm sorry" he blurts. "I was asleep. I should have put on some pants before I came in here." Why did he ever think it was appropriate to sleep in his shorts? 

She looks confused. "Why?" Is she going to make him say it? His skill with words deserts him.

"This" he says gesturing at it. She tilts her head a little and draws him closer. He goes, almost against his will. 

"Don't you take it off at night or something?" she asks, and oh... she's running her hands around his knee, right where his leg connects to it's enhancement.

"Ah, no, it's permanently attached. But do you...?" How can he ask? If he says "does it repulse you?" she'll say no. Even if she's lying.

"I'm sorry" she whispers, her hands still on his leg. "I did this to you, I tied that knot."

"No!" he pulls her toward him, and she seems to come willingly. Cuddling into his body like she always does. "You saved me. I'd be dead if you hadn't stopped the bleeding." He doesn't want pity from her, that would almost be worse than revulsion. 

"Last night was the best sleep I've had since... you know." She says against his neck.

"Me too." He murmurs back. They know both know the other has nightmares. Why deny it?

"Do you think maybe you'd like to sleep in here again?" she asks, still talking into his shirt.

"Yeah" he says. "I think that would be good. And I'll wear pants next time."

She tilts her head back to look at him, confused. "Wear whatever you want, I don't care." And then she goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. He's clearly been dismissed.

Peeta makes his way back to his own room feeling a little lightheaded. She doesn't care. She doesn't care if this mechanical thing that is supposed to be a part of his body is covered or uncovered. She doesn't care if it touches her or not. She just wants him, Peeta, in her bed to push the nightmares away.

Peeta's good mood lasts approximately an hour before the relentlessness of the tour gets to him again.

Sharing a bed with Katniss isn't sexy, no matter how many suggestive comments Haymitch makes, or how much Effie twitters about it being inappropriate. Katniss sobbing inconsolably and seeing her die painfully in his dreams really puts a damper on any erotic thoughts that happen to cross Peeta's mind. On the few occasions he does wake feeling his erection pressing into her side she acts like she doesn't notice. He let's her, but he doesn't try to hide it either. If she's going to sleep with her hands inside his shirt (so she can always feel that he's warm and alive she tells him) she has to expect the occasional biological reaction.

For Peeta District Four is the worst. He has had to stand in front of the families of the children he killed in Eight and Five, but he could hope that perhaps they were looking at him with forgiveness. There is no forgiveness in the eyes of these families. They glare with undisguised hatred at the upstarts from Twelve that dared to take the lives of their children. 

And the crowds. The crowds seethe with barely controlled violence, and when they shout Katniss' name it sounds like a battle cry. These people are not interested in being distracted by the star crossed lovers, they look at them and see rebellion, and it's terrifying.

By the time they get to the reception Peeta and Katniss are both shaken. So when she whispers that she wants to sneak off "for real" he immediately agrees. It's a thing they do, to amp up their romance by ostentatiously trying to sneak away from the parties, like they just can't get enough of each other. Doing it for real is another matter. It's when they try to slip away discretely to just get a few moments of peace.

They get themselves locked in a coat closet. Which after an initial stressful moment turns out to be awesome. 

"So isn't it funny that I know you'd risk your life for me, but I don't know you're favorite food?" Peeta says. And Katniss laughs. They're sitting on the floor and she's leaning back against his chest. It's the most relaxed posture he's felt from her since, well ever. Even when she sleeps she's tense. But this closet feels safe. Surely there are no microphones here?

"Not this again. Can't you guess?" Peeta smiles. Playful Katniss is a wonderful rarely seen thing.

"Well I suppose your adoring public would choose lamb stew, but I've seen you eat. I think it's hot chocolate." She sighs deeply and relaxes against him even more.

"Good guess, but no. Do you remember those buns with cheese in them that you gave us a few months back?" He does. He and Tomas had been experimenting with the pizza recipes from Haymitch's books. Peeta had to order the cow's milk cheese in because the only cheese they had in Twelve was from goats. They hadn't liked the pizza very much, too wet and too rich, but they had played around with other things they could add the cheese to. Cheese buns had been one of the better results. 

"Seriously? Why didn't you ask me to make more?" She tenses up a little.

"We weren't really talking." Oh. He can't let this go there. He doesn't want to break this moment. 

"I am definitely ordering in more of that cheddar cheese when we get home." He's rewarded by feeling her shaking a little. Is she laughing at his endless desire to please her?

"So what's your favorite food?" She asks. He smiles into her hair.

"Guess."

"Hmm, something involving cinnamon." How could she know that? "You always smell like cinnamon." That sounds so intimate. But if anyone knows what he smells like she should. Between the their excessive on camera relationship, the nights spent comforting her through her screams, and lately the days when she spends hours curled up next to him refusing to speak, they are rarely out of physical contact.

"I'd guess cinnamon rolls, but you don't make them often enough, unless you eat them all yourself." she continues. 

"No, it's um," he dislodges her to reach into his pocket, pulling out a paper bag. "They sell these at the sweet shop at home." She takes one.

"Oh" she says, startled

"Is it too hot for you?"

"No, it's just um" her voice drops "you taste like this sometimes." Oh. They don't kiss with tongues, but since Haymitch told them they needed to up the passion they had been more open mouthed. Enough so Katniss apparently associates a taste with him.

The fit of his pants is becoming uncomfortable, and he turns her back around before he does something stupid, like kiss her off camera.

"So I bet I can guess more things about you" he says desperately. She jumps right in, clearly glad of the subject change.

They spend another hour guessing each others favorite things. There is a awkward moment when he asks who she would say her best friend is, but she chooses Madge Undersee. He tells her she can say it's Gale, he won't be jealous (he would be), but she tells him that things just haven't been the same between them since the games. She has no idea how happy that makes him, and how guilty he feels about being happy. 

Even though his bladder is starting to feel overstretched Peeta is disappointed when someone finally let's them out. It's the first time they've laughed together since the games. Talking like this is better than any number of fake kisses. He has a feeling that he won't be seeing this side of Katniss again until the tour is over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the books Katniss seems to treat Peeta's amputation almost dismissively, which I read as she genuinely doesn't care. That Peeta is still exactly the same to her. And I think that hearing that would be so important to him.   
> I do think the the bed sharing thing is highly overrated, and the sneaking off to closets is underrated, so this is the result.


	10. Feted

If the districts are depressing, returning to The Capitol is terrifying.

They are taken to teas, and parties, and 'events' until they all begin to blur together. At least these people don't need to be convinced. But their avarice, their disdain, their lack of any apparent moral reference point frightens Peeta so much more. He tries to remind himself that what he is seeing is the worst this city has to offer. That this place can produce decent people, like Portia, and Cinna. Good kind people. Even Effie, who for all her weirdness genuinely tries to take care of them.

Peeta notices it first at an "intimate soiree." He is wondering how much money these people had to pay to have them at their party, when the the wife, a malnourished looking woman (how can anyone be starving here?) in her forties slides between him and Katniss.

She's behaving oddly, flipping back her strangely yellow hair, touching her neck and her grossly disproportionate cleavage, invading his personal space... Oh no. Hell no. Seriously? She's like, thirty years older than him. And really scary. How is that hot? Especially when he has Katniss in his arms every night. Not sexually. But there's a hope of that. Certainly not so little that he would take this gaunt, plastic, mother aged woman up on what she's offering. Ever.

He glances over at Katniss and sees the husband staring at her in a way Peeta can only term predatory. Do these people realize they are only sixteen years old? Then watching Katniss smile in polite oblivion as the sleazy bastard tries to look down her dress he thinks that perhaps their innocence is exactly what these people are attracted to.

It happens again and again. The women, and occasionally men that move in on Peeta are fairly easy to dismiss. A little time, a few smiles and a restatement of his feelings for Katniss seems to move them along with bittersweet smiles. The kind of men he sees looking at Katniss though... Cold powerful manipulative men. Frightening, dangerous men. Even more worrying is that Katniss doesn't even seem to notice.

Peeta tries to bring it up to Haymitch but he brushes him off. "Victors are hot property" he says. "Don't worry, they all know you only have eyes for one girl." When Peeta mutters that he's not worried about himself, Haymitch laughs.

"Boy you can't be thinking that one of those old men are going to tempt her away?" Peeta is annoyed and embarrassed. Does Haymitch really think that he's that foolish and shallow? That he's jealous of these creepy guys? Peeta is genuinely concerned for her safety. But then Haymitch adds casually that Katniss is under enough stress and he doesn't need to bother her with any of this. 

Haymitch is playing him again. After dealing with him for months now Peeta should be wiser to his mentor's machinations. Haymitch has clearly seen what's happening, and for some reason he's trying to hide it from them. The entire situation feels ominous now.

His first instinct is to tell Katniss everything. But what is everything? That he has a bad feeling about the motives of some of the people they've come into contact with in the Capitol? How shocking! And Haymitch is being manipulative and evasive? What's new about that? He really has nothing to tell. 

Yet they promised no more secrets.

Cuddled together in bed that night Peeta rolls into her until his mouth is against her ear. He asks her if she's noticed how people are flirting with them. He has decided this is the best approach, just find out what she's noticed, if anything, and try to get her to be cautious. 

"I see how they look at you Peeta." she mutters. She sounds petulant.

"Don't worry, I can handle that. I'm talking about the ones who are looking at you."

"Oh, I'm sure you can handle them." She huffs into his ear. What? This conversation is not going the way Peeta planned. Is she jealous? The idea seems unlikely, but then why else would she be acting this way? 

"Are you implying what I think you are? Because seriously, have you looked at these people? It's hard to tell if some of them are even human!" If she is jealous he knows better than to draw attention to it. Better to joke it off. He feels her chuckling against his skin and and a wave of goosebumps ripple over him. Talking like this with their faces pressed into each others necks can be, well, he needs to just get to the point and pull away.

"I just wanted to tell you I'm worried about it okay? Some of those men who look at you, they really want you, and they don't seem to be the kind to take no for an answer. Just, be careful. Please." Peeta moves back and lets her settle into her usual position against his chest. He can't quite tell in the dark but he thinks she's rolling her eyes.

"I think you're overreacting. I know you have some weird ideas about me but I'm not that interesting." She whispers finally. Peeta sighs. This is an ongoing theme. He's learned not to compliment her directly, she always thinks he's lying. It's almost impossible for her to believe these Capitol men are lusting after her to any significant degree because she truly doesn't see how alluring she is. The best he can hope is that he's made her a bit more aware.

Peeta thinks that Katniss has dismissed what he said, until he notices that she is sticking a little bit closer, tensing a little bit more when a predatory man approaches. He's relieved. She never mentions the issue again, but it's after an encounter with a particularly determined man two days later that she announces they should get engaged.

Peeta lies on his bed and stares at the ceiling. This shouldn't be affecting him so much. They all knew that this was where they were heading. But, he had hoped. Hoped that by the time they got here she might be happy to say yes. Not like this, when it's all fear and pain. Not when he's halfway sure that her heart belongs to someone else. How can he do it? How can he look into her eyes and pour out his heart only to receive lies back?

She doesn't come to check on him. Nobody does. He's glad. Viciously glad. At least he knows where he stands. He'd almost forgotten these last few weeks, holding her, comforting her, needed by her, that he's just the accessory. It's good to have it all clearly laid out for him. He has to reconfirm his objectives, and remember that they are always to keep Katniss safe. Trying to get her to fall in love with him is just a silly and selfish distraction. Most likely pointless too.

Peeta knows what he's here for, and he knows what he needs to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of these scenes have been in my head all along, but this is one that happened as I was reading over the relevant passages in Catching Fire.  
> I wondered why it was after they got to the Capitol, and before having any new contact with Snow that Katniss decided they needed to get engaged. It seemed odd, surely it would have been more likely after a district appearance when the crowd was particularly disbelieving, or when Snow had restated his threats? But no, she comes up with the idea after they have begun making the rounds of the Capitol who they "don't need to convince".  
> It didn't take much thought to come up with what could be the additional triggering factor, even Katniss doesn't admit it to herself.  
> Sound plausible?


	11. Team

Dinner is quiet and uncomfortable. Peeta had considered staying in his room and ordering food, but it seemed childish. So here they sit. Katniss is refusing to look at him, Haymitch is pursuing drunkenness at a much faster rate than usual and even Effie seems subdued. 

As desert is served Haymitch clears his throat and tells them that if they have anything special to say the interview tomorrow will be the time. Peeta nods his understanding. The cheesecake stops tasting so good. He gets up and goes to his room. 

He's almost there when he feels a hand slip into his. He turns and Katniss is looking him in the face for the first time all evening. 

"Don't leave me alone. Please." He sighs. Can he ever refuse her? He lets her lead him into her room. 

Katniss prefers to pin him to the bed in her sleep, with him on his back and her laying halfway on top of him. She says that hearing his heart beating helps her relax. But tonight she nudges him onto his side and cuddles herself against his back, wrapping her arm over him to tangle their fingers together and press her hand against his chest. Offering comfort rather than receiving it.

It's harder when she's like this. Because Peeta can see so clearly how it could be between them. Caring for each other, giving and sweet. He feels tears slipping down his face and tries not to sob. But Katniss must feel. She clings tighter. How can he do this? How can endure it?

He wakes a few hours later to her sobbing into his back. As Peeta turns to comfort her he doesn't ask if it was a nightmare, because he's afraid it's not. 

 

The proposal went off without a hitch. Peeta pretended it was all happening to someone else, as if he was reading about characters in a book. Now they are at this gaudy ostentatious celebration at the Presidential Mansion and Katniss is practically giddy. He doesn't even attempt to convince himself that she's happy about being engaged to him, last night was just too telling. But after weeks of watching her waste away it's good to see her eat.

Her eyes sparkle as she gives him quick little kisses and feeds him random tidbits and it's impossible to resist her good mood. Peeta wonders if she is still trying to comfort him. He has to admit it's working. 

She keeps feeding him until he has to call a halt. There's no way he can eat another bite. For the last few things she has been taking the tiniest nibble before forcing the rest on him, so he knows she's full too.

It's then that the preps offer him a drink to make him vomit. Because what fun is an evening unless you've thrown up a few times, after eating more food that an average seam family sees in a week? He wants to throw the elegant stemmed glass across the room. Instead he carefully puts it down and grabs Katniss. He can't look or speak to these people right now, so he pulls her onto the dance floor. 

As the circle slowly Peeta looks at the people around him in disgust.

"You go along, thinking you can deal with it, thinking maybe they're not so bad, and then you-" Katniss looks at him sorrowfully. They got engaged tonight. To pacify the districts, to entertain these worthless people. Why? Shouldn't someone be trying to end this? This selfish, pointless consumption. These people need to be told, shown, that they don't have the right to do this, to just take and take until there's nothing left for the people who produced it.

Katniss cuts him off. Tells him to save it for home. And Peeta looks at her. Properly looks at her. She is all he has in this mess. The one person he can trust, the one who he knows will always be protecting his back, watching out for him. And he sees it. Why Snow is so intent on forcing this fake romance down their throats. It's not about pacifying the districts. Not really. It's about breaking them. Pushing them apart. Because together they are powerful. 

Their power is about proving something Snow doesn't want people to remember. The games are supposed to teach them that they are powerless and that a human being with do anything to survive. That a dying boy or girl will turn on their friend to survive. But they changed the rules. They chose death rather than betrayal. That is why Snow hates them, and that is why he's pushing them. To get them to turn on each other, to tear each other down. To prove he is right after all.

But it's backfired on him. Last night they had cried over their impending engagement. But they had done it together. Instead of attacking each other Snow has turned them into a team. What started between them in the arena is now fully realized. The connection they have has nothing to do with romance and everything to do with trust. And the harder Snow pushes the stronger it becomes. He has to have noticed by now. Peeta wonders what he'll do about it. He looks back at Katniss' worried face. What ever it is they will handle it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, but it just felt anticlimactic to continue on after Peeta's big realization.  
> Katniss was always so scared she never really seemed to understand what Snow was doing with forcing the romance to continue. But Peeta is more perceptive.  
> Katniss here, well she's back to sending mixed signals, but at least Peeta is getting more adept at reading them.
> 
> Updates may be slower for a while, my Kindle has died and writing while I click between screens is very annoying.


	12. We Survived

They get to the train station on time, thanks to Effie, and she herds them into the dining car to review the schedule for twelve. It's an annoying habit of hers, like she has to put her planner to bed before everyone else can get there. 

Peeta sees no reason this can't be covered in the morning, but the one time that he and Katniss had been so exhausted that they had snuck off to bed before the scheduling meeting Haymitch had actually woken them up. When he had forced them out to the living room Effie was having some sort of anxiety attack. She calmed down once she was able to review the next days obligations, which was actually nothing, since they would be traveling all day. 

He had challenged Haymitch about it, because, yes they were getting so much rest they could be woken up just to be told they had nothing to do the next day. Haymitch had glared and told him not to mess with another person's coping mechanism. And Peeta had imagined what would happen if someone took away all of Haymitch's liquor. Or prevented him and Katniss from sleeping in the same bed each night. He has tolerated the planning meetings ever since.

When Peeta wakes he feels rested. Extremely well rested. The clock is saying 2pm. Which is amazing. They both slept for twelve uniterupted hours. Peeta can't remember sleeping for more than four hours since he was drugged into unconciousness after the games. And Katniss slept even longer. She was asleep when he came in, and she is sleeping still. 

He reaches up and runs his hands through her hair, an intimacy she tacitly allows. He had mentioned that liked her hair down and she has worn her hair loose to bed ever since.

The touch disturbs her, and she wakes, rolling over toward him smiling. She tells him about the dream she had. A happy one for once. He plays with her hair. It all feels idyllic, like they really are the happy newly engaged couple, instead of tense frightened puppets of The Capitol.

Of course Peeta has to ruin it. All he says is that when he dreams of her dying, which, yes is the worst of his nightmares, he doesn't need to wake her once he reassures himself that she's alive and sleeping next to him. It is such an improvement over watching for her out of his window, finally able to relax when he sees her leave to hunt in the predawn hours. He thought that it was understood, that she had the same kind of dreams. She does scream his name fairly often.

"Be worse when we're home and I'm sleeping alone again." Please please say he won't always be sleeping alone. Now that Peeta knows how much better he sleeps when he can hold her he can't imagine how hard it's going to be go back to how it was. Realistically he knows that Katniss won't be inviting him to her bed every night in the room down the hall from her mother and sister. But surely she could occasionally slip over to his place? 

But no. He can see it in her face. Like a switch was flipped when he said "home". She isn't his anymore. No longer the Katniss that shares her pain and fears and allowed herself to need him. She has returned to being the Katniss of District Twelve. The one that refuses to need anyone, particularly Peeta Mellark.

Peeta goes back to his room with the melancholy thought that the next time he shares a bed with Katniss will probably be on the day she's forced to marry him. 

 

The reception at the Mayor's house is by far the most pleasant party Peeta has attended on the tour. Since they are amongst family and friends Peeta and Katniss are expected to spend a bit more time apart, so less kissing and gazing at each other adoringly. It's a relief to Peeta, the charade feels infinitely more difficult in front of people who actually know them. At least Gale Hawthorne isn't in attendance. 

The Harvest Festival is actually fun, seeing the people of Twelve faced with more food than they can eat is one of the happiest moments Peeta has had since the games. If only the source of this good fortune could be something other than the deaths of twenty two kids.

Peeta sits out the dancing, he can handle the kind of slow spinning that they were taught for the tour, but this kind of energetic romp is not something his artificial leg is ready for. Still, he smiles as he watches Katniss bounce through the set. She catches his eyes on her and comes toward him. They are both still very aware of the cameras on them, so when she reaches him she puts her arms around his neck and kisses him.

He feels the difference immediately. Before this moment Peeta would have said that all the kisses and touches on the tour were fake, forced, uncomfortable. He was wrong. It's easy to tell now that he has this for comparison.

By this point Peeta has held her in his arms a thousand times. This is the first time that if feels like she's ashamed, repulsed. She has never hesitated to commit fully to a hug, pressing herself against him. Not now. She angles her body away from him, like she can't stand his touch. 

Before the love might have been fake, but at least there was affection. Apparently that's gone now too. 

Peeta stiffens and pulls away from her too quickly, he knows that, but he can't deal with feeling like he's forcing her to touch him. It feels wrong and dirty in a way that nothing else has. She glares at him.

"What is your problem?" she hisses.

"My problem, what's yours?" Fortunately at that moment someone calls her away, otherwise the viewing public might have been treated to a public squabble between the starcrossed lovers. 

"I saw that" says a voice from behind him. Cinna. 

Peeta winces. "Do you think anyone else did?" 

Cinna gestures to the center of the square. Prim is teaching the prep teams the steps to one of the more elaborate and energetic dances. The camera are all focused on them. 

"I think that's an effective distraction."

Peeta sighs. He knows he needs to keep it together. But Katniss has never rejected him like that before. And then to act like it was all his fault... 

Cinna sits beside him, and they silently watch the antics of the preps. Peeta feels like he should feel insulted by the constant exclamations over how quaint and rustic it all is, but he just can't muster the interest.

"How did you always imagine this going?" Cinna asks. Peeta looks at him questioningly. "Between you and Katniss I mean. If you hadn't gone to the games. How did you imagine it would be if you eventually had a relationship?" 

Peeta snorts. "Nothing like this, that's for sure." Cinna nods.

"I agree. I can't see any possible version of that where Katniss would be all over you in public. I imagine you would have a hard time getting her to walk down the street holding your hand." He's right, Katniss is not naturally given to public gestures. Peeta fails to see the relevancy.

"Out there, in the districts and the Capitol, she can pretend, be what they want. But it's much harder here at home, in front of people she knows. He natural instincts to keep these things private is coming back. So try to be understanding." It all makes perfect sense. Except Cinna is missing one essential point. Exactly who she wants to be having those kind of private moments with. But then Cinna gives him a knowing look.

"And don't let yourself forget. Snow may have forced her to kiss and flirt on camera, but no one was making her do the rest. That was all her, and yes she's feeling a bit shy now she's home, but" and Cinna nods to where Gale Hawthorne stands, alternatingly staring at Katniss and scowling at all the Capitol people, "if it's between you and that cheerful fellow? My money's on you."

Peeta's mood is briefly lifted by Cinna's endorsement, but really he just feels drained. So when it becomes apparent that someone needs to see Haymitch home before he embarrasses himself, he volunteers. The camera crews are packing it up, so there is no reason for him to stay.

As they get closer to the village Haymitch sobers up remarkably. 

"Were you faking it?"

Haymitch shrugs. "Being drunk is the easiest way I know to get out of a party early. Besides, you looked like you'd had enough." 

"Thanks I guess." Peeta stops and looks at the dark windows. His empty house. Where tonight he gets to go to his room and go to sleep alone. How has Haymitch coped all these years? "What now?" 

Haymitch slaps him on the back. "Now? Now you just feel glad the tour's over and that we all survived. Go home." 

Peeta doesn't know what else to do, so he goes home to be alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually do song pairings, mostly because I can't stand to listen to music while I read, but as I was writing this the words of Adam's Song by Blink-182 kept going through my head. You may have noticed that I even have Haymitch paraphrase some of the lyrics. Of course Peeta isn't suicidal, but the words just seem to resonate with his sombre mood.
> 
> So if like music while you read, by all means, pull up Adam's Song. Either way, enjoy the update.


	13. Run Away?

If one more person butts into his relationship with Katniss, Peeta is going to do something very violent. And he was in the Games, so he knows how to do quite a few violent things.

First it was Cinna at the harvest festival. Okay, he asked for that. He'd been about to have a very public fight with his new fiance, so that wasn't exactly out of line. But then the next day Portia is giving him advice, telling him he can't loose the momentum he has with her, and love can't grow without cultivation, and other confusing metaphorical type statements. Peeta just smiled and nodded.

Two days later Tomas is at his house gobbling down mangos, and saying how he is not going to listen to him mope about Katniss for another four months, so if he doesn't get talking to her he will physically drag him over to see her. Yeah, thanks big brother he thinks, and by the way he never moped about Katniss.

Later that same day Haymitch shows up and reminds him that Snow is watching and that for Katniss' safety he can't afford to look less than deliriously in love. Nice to know his mentor has his best interests at heart.

It's when Prim shows up suggesting that as her future brother he might want to spend a bit of time over at their house, and surely Katniss misses seeing him, that he decides he has officially had enough. 

He locks his doors and paints for two days straight. Does it not occur to anyone that he might just be longing for a bit of solitude after being crammed up with other people on a train for a month straight? Or that perhaps it doesn't always have to be him that does the work in this relationship? Katniss was the one Snow had personally threatened. Katniss was the one kissing someone else, yet they all think that it has to be Peeta that holds it all together.

He paints out all his frustrations, and when he finally stops, swaying on his feet from exhaustion, he realizes what he's done. It's all her. He has drawn and painted image after image of Katniss. There is her face, peaceful in sleep, that is her back as she dips her toes in the ocean for the first time. And there she is whirling in the dance at the harvest festival. 

He gives in. Yes he misses her, and yes he needs her. He'll talk to her as soon as he gets some sleep.

Peeta wakes to find Tomas sitting on the floor beside the bed.

"What are you doing? Watching me sleep?" Creepy.

Tomas looks embarrassed. "I was trying to figure out how to wake you up." Yeah okay, Peeta did try to kill him last time he did that. 

"I'm awake. What do you need?" 

Tomas' cheeks turn even redder and he stares intently at the ceiling. "I've been sent to summon you to dinner." Peeta sighs. This is clearly not a conversation to have while still in bed. He gets up and heads downstairs. 

"What do they want?"

"Actually I think it's about keeping up appearances. People noticed that Dayvid refused to talk you at the festival." That had been odd. Peeta's reunion with his family was certainly no love fest, but at least his parents and sister-in-law had managed to be polite. His oldest brother had refused to even shake his hand.

"What is his problem anyway?" Now that he thinks about it, he has spoken to Dayvid exactly once since the games. He's never at the bakery when Peeta goes in to decorate cakes, and he has certainly never made the effort to seek him out.

"Oh he just hates you" Tomas says, casually biting into a banana. Peeta feels his mouth fall open. Hates? Sure they've never been friends. But hates him?

"Why?" 

"You really don't know?" Tomas' eyes widen in surprise. "Dayvid has always hated you because he's jealous. Sure he's the oldest so he gets the bakery on paper, but you're the one with all the talent. The one who brings in the money. We make more on one cake decorated by you than we do on fifty loaves of bread. It doesn't help that our darling mother has been telling him for years that if he gives you the slightest chance you'll try to push him out and take over completely." No, Peeta hadn't known any of that. How can he be so good at figuring out the motives of complete strangers, yet his own family can blindside him like this?

"And now of course his loving wife has figured out where the money comes from and has decided that she'd like to upgrade." Well Peeta can't say he's surprised at that. He has never been fond of the girl his brother married. She is transparently selfish and manipulative. 

"Who's she after then? The shoemaker's son?" Tomas laughs and shakes his head.

"You, idiot. Didn't you notice how flirty she was at the festival?" Peeta shudders.

"There is no way I would ever, ugh, even thinking about that is wrong." Tomas chortles gleefully. 

"I've got to get back to work, but I'll see you at about five. They'll all be there, so it's gonna be a fun evening at the Mellarks." 

Peeta runs into Katniss as he is leaving the village, and he can't help but feel annoyed. She's obviously been in the woods, and since it's Sunday that means she's been there with Gale Hawthorne. Doesn't she remember she's supposed to be giving the impression she's in love with Peeta, not Gale? Skipping off to the woods with the guy at the first opportunity isn't exactly the best way to convince the President.

She decides to walk into town with him, so he bites it back and tries to just enjoy spending time with her. They walk in silence. She clearly has something she wants to say, and he's waiting for her to get it her out. He wonders if he should ask her to come to the family dinner with him. If his family really does want to keep up appearances it would only be polite to include Peeta's future wife right? He imagines the look on his mothers face if he walked in with Katniss. Maybe she could chase off his disturbing sister-in-law. Peeta wonders if seeing another girl hit on him would make Katniss jealous. She hadn't liked it in the Capitol. 

"Peeta, if I asked you to run away from the district with me, would you?" He reaches out and turns her toward him, wanting to see her face. She looks scared, nervous. And it all comes tumbling out. How she's sure that Snow still has it in for them, and that there's unrest in other districts. Peeta really wishes she had told him this sooner. But then again, maybe she had tried. He had basically barred himself into his house for the last few days. 

She tells him that Gale Hawthorne won't be along for the ride, that he has "other plans." He bets he does. Peeta can be certain that if he and Haymitch are one place Gale Hawthorne will be in another. The guy makes no attempt to disguise his hatred for them. He wonders exactly how that conversation went. 

Peeta has no problem agreeing to go with her. He's pretty sure this whole running off into the woods idea is just Katniss being her usual impulsive self, but if things really do get bad enough that they can't be safe here, why would he stay behind?

An odd sound catches his attention, and it takes him a moment to place it. But only a moment. His mother has only whipped him once, (even his father couldn't ignore those wounds), but the sound of leather hitting flesh is not something easily forgotten.

He grabs Katniss' hand and pulls her closer to him, needing her to be safe. She is confused but she comes with him trustingly.

There's a crowd in the square and they are eerily silent. The only sound is the repetitive blows. Peeta tucks Katniss against a wall, keeping his body between her and the crowd. He climbs up on some crates to see over the heads in front of him. What he sees sends his stomach plummeting to his feet.

Gale Hawthorne is tied to the whipping post in the center of the square, and he looks like he could be dead.

Peeta's got to get Katniss out of here, and he's got to save Gale Hawthorne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that would be a cliffhanger ending if you all didn't know exactly what happens next.  
> At first I wasn't sure what Peeta's intentions were regarding Gale's whipping. But protecting others is so essential to his character that I'm pretty sure he was planning on doing something to save him once he got Katniss to a safe place. What do you think?


	14. Storm

"You're mad you know. All three of you. Does coming out of the arena tattoo 'heroic idiot' on your soul or something?"

Peeta shouldn't be surprised to find Tomas at his house. With all the events of the last few hours he had completely forgotten about the family dinner he was supposed to be attending. But surely they had heard what happened? They probably saw it, the bakery does overlook the square. Though his mother is just that self involved to expect him to show up for dinner after Katniss has been whipped in the face by a peacekeeper.

"You can tell mother that I'm not coming for dinner after all." Peeta rubs his face. He really should try to get some sleep but he's too jittery to relax. He goes into the kitchen and starts pulling out canisters.

"That's not exactly why I'm here." Hearing the waver in Tomas' voice Peeta turns to look at him. And sees the purple swelling around his eye and across his cheekbone. Tomas refuses to met his eyes. "She wasn't very happy with you. She was just going on and on about you, and Katniss and Hawthorne, saying really horrible stuff. And I, um I told her to be careful what she says about your girl, because you might stop giving her money. That's when she, yeah, well you know. Lucky she was rolling pastry and not chopping vegetables I guess."

Tomas' shoulders slump in shame, and Peeta has no idea what to do. His brother is a muscular, powerful nineteen year old man. His mother is a tiny birdlike creature in her forties. She shouldn't be able to dominate and hurt him. But Peeta knows too well the power she wields over her husband and children.

"I guess I need to send Katniss around to rough her up again." Tomas finally looks up and gives him a half smile. 

"Yeah maybe you should. Anyway I was kind of hoping I could stay here tonight?" 

"Of course you can. You can move in if you want. I've told you that before." Tomas just shrugs his shoulders uncomfortably at that. They both know that moving in with Peeta would involve Tomas openly defying their mother, something he just doesn't seem able to do.

"What are you doing?" Tomas says instead, turning his attention to the ingredients Peeta is laying out. He's glad he had some dough already rising.

"Baking."

"Are you kidding? At this time of night? Aren't you tired?" Peeta shakes his head.

"There's no way I can sleep right now." Too stressed, too angry, too heartsick. 

"I hope were going to be using the oven in here, since, you know, it's snowing out there." Tomas says, taking down a bowl.

Peeta smiles, it feels like the first time he's smiled in days. "No way, I can't let a little thing like a snowstorm stop me from turning out high quality bread." But perhaps he should bake enough to feed all of them for the next few days. He doesn't want Haymitch snowed in with nothing but liquor. 

As they mix and knead Peeta fills Tomas in on what he knows, the whipping, the new head peacekeeper, Katniss. It feels so selfish but he can't help dwell on her. How she'd acted.

"You should have seen her. She was so upset, I had to hold her down, she was that irrational." It hurts now just to remember. "She loves him, and what right do I have to try to come between that? To try to turn her away from someone she loves that much?" For once Tomas has no reply.

Peeta doesn't even bother to tell him about Katniss' plan for them all to run. There is no way she's going anywhere without Gale Hawthorne.

Dawn is breaking, bleak and grey in the still falling snow, by the time Peeta slides the last loaves from the oven. Tomas had crashed out on the couch a few hours earlier, so he packages up some of the cooler loaves and heads out alone. 

Katniss is asleep with her head next to Gale's, their fingers twined tightly together. Peeta thought he had prepared himself for this, but he's wrong. Seeing her sleeping wrapped up with someone else, that one thing that he had thought was special between them. It hurts too much. He forces himself to focus on the injuries. The cut on her cheek looks bad. He wants to brush his fingers across her face, to soothe and comfort her as he's done so many times, but he obviously doesn't have that right anymore. He wakes her, to send her off to bed.

She looks at him with such sorrow and regret in her eyes, and he really can't take that right now. "Just go to bed, okay?" And she finally does.

He sits and stares at the man on the table, willing the idiot not to die. He's certain that Katniss wouldn't be able to cope with that. It's not long before Prim wanders in yawning. She smiles when she see's the bread on the counter. 

"Did you sleep at all?"

Peeta shakes his head. "Too much going on." She comes over and hugs him. He moves to help her prepare some food, and when Mrs Everdeen joins them they eat standing up before starting in with mixing up some herbal concoction.

Peeta hears Katniss cry out in her sleep and he fights the urge to run upstairs to comfort her. That's not his right anymore. He glances uncomfortably at the others. 

"I think I should get going. Don't want to leave my house unattended in the storm." What a lie. Tomas can take care of the house perfectly well. He just can't handle being snowed in with Katniss and Gale right now. 

When he get's home he finds Tomas awake and watching television. He sits down beside him before he realizes what it is he's watching. It's the games. And not just any games. His own. Not something he ever wants to watch again. He gets up to leave but Tomas stops him.

"I want you to see this." Peeta can't imagine why it's important, but he's too tired to argue. So he watches Katniss hand him the berries, watches them bring them to their mouths, defying the Capitol and Snow to save each other. Hears the announcement and sees them get taken up into the hovercraft. He doesn't remember anything after that, so he watches in shock as Katniss fights the doctors trying to remove his limp body from her arms, watches as she screams his name, beating her fists on the barrier separating them.

"Remind you of anything?" He looks at Tomas. He knows the point he's trying to make, but it's not really the same thing. She was exhausted and still wrapped up in playing the role of the star crossed lover.  
"I was thinking about what you said earlier, about how you seem to think that you have no right to try to win her over," Tomas continues, "I just want you to think about this, he's had her for four years, and yes she got pretty upset when he was hurt. But you had her for less than four weeks, and she acts like this over you. So I don't want to hear anymore about you having no right, this" he says stabbing his finger toward the screen "this gives you rights."

It's too much to think about right now. The wind is picking up outside, with the amount of snow coming down nothing is going to be happening for a few days anyway. Peeta can think about Katniss and Gale and the new peacekeepers and everything else later. After he gets some sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was split off from the previous chapter, but I feel like it should be all read together, hence the quick update.
> 
> I don't have much editorial content to add, I stuck pretty close to the script on this one, so no particular revelations. Hope it's still an interesting read.


	15. Life Goes On

Katniss has changed her mind. Instead of running she wants to start a revolution. Peeta knows that he had the same thought, not so long ago, watching disgusting Capitol excesses while the districts starve. But now? With the brutality of the new head peacekeeper fresh in mind? He doesn't know what he thinks, so he keeps his mouth shut.

There are new structures in the town square. Things made for pain and death. Few people are out. After a storm usually the streets are busy. People making repairs, restocking supplies, and just socializing after being confined to their homes for days. Not today.

When Katniss tells him she's going to visit the Hawthorne's, Peeta decides to go with her. She's already given the new Head Peacekeeper a reason to hate her. She shouldn't be found alone on the street today. Peeta is a bit anxious about the reception he'll receive, but the family is perfectly polite. Or perhaps it's just that they are too preoccupied with more immediate problems, like the potential for starvation, to care about his presence.

Walking though the seam neighborhoods is hard. These people are starving and suffering, something their win was supposed to alleviate, but it's worse. And Peeta and Katniss are to blame. If one of them had just been able to kill the other then things would have been the same. Even a bit better. Instead they had to save each other. And bring this new regime down on all these people. Because Peeta doesn't doubt that the new harsh Head is here to control them. And it's the people of the district that will suffer. 

Seeing the Hob burning just confirms it. Peeta had hoped he could convince Katniss to bring him here, to meet the people who had figured so heavily in her life. He just didn't expect her to bring him to see it's ashes. He hopes Haymitch wasn't lying when he said the people who sold there were smart enough to get out in time.

Peeta's mother sees them coming from down the street. Peeta knows, because she meets his eyes and then she frowned when she saw who he was with, who was holding his hand. He's not sure when in this awful day that happened, but at some point they reacted to the situation the same way they did on the tour, by clinging closer to each other. 

He's not surprised when she's nowhere in sight when they enter the bakery. He told Katniss he wanted to check on his family. Really he wants to make sure that Tomas was okay. It's not really a lie. Tomas is his family. The only member of his family he wants to claim.

His brother had initially been happy to get away from the oppressive atmosphere at home, until he was snowed in at Peeta's for three days. Peeta knew there wouldn't be much work to do at the bakery during a snow storm, but Tomas had gotten increasingly nervous as the days passed, and he had hurried back to the bakery the previous night, as soon as a path was cleared. Peeta needs to know he's okay.

And, yeah his mother seeing Katniss here just seems like a good idea. A reminder that Katniss' attack on her could happen again at any time, if she doesn't watch herself. When he see's Tomas grin at him through the window in the kitchen door Peeta is able relax a bit.

When they stop to say goodbye at the entrance to Victor's Village, Peeta can't help himself. Katniss looks so tired and sad, he gives in to his need to touch her, wiggling his hand out of his glove to trace his fingers along the injury on her face.

"I'm so sorry about this," he says. He doesn't know where he stands right now, if he's allowed to touch her this way, but he needs to comfort her. Her eyes slip closed and her head tilts slightly to give him access. The cut has a dressing taped over it, but he can see she has a vivid black eye.

"I was too slow, and you got hurt." His prosthetic leg had failed him when he jumped down and he had fallen. When he got up she had disappeared into the crowd, the path she cut had closed tightly, probably because everyone she passed was anticipating the show. By the time he had forced his way through she was bleeding and Haymitch was already there.

"You don't have to protect me" she says. Does she think he can help himself?

"I'm always going to want to do that. Do you think you're the only one around here that's a heroic idiot?" He says, quoting his brother, and is rewarded with a small tilt of her mouth. It's pressing his luck, when he leans in with his hand still on her cheek and gently kisses the purple skin under her eye. And then, because maybe he has something to prove he drops a second kiss on the corner of her mouth. 

Her eyes pop open and she gives him a sad pleading look. But she doesn't push him away.

"No looking at me like I'm wounded remember?" She narrows her eyes at him suspiciously. He grins and steps back. "I'll come by and see you tomorrow okay?"

Before the tour Peeta had handed off his baking at the door, always sure that Katniss didn't want him inside her house. Now he ignores the glares from Gale Hawthorne, and comes right in. Prim beams at him, and Katniss alternately smiles and scowls. He watches her interactions with Gale. They seem awkward with each other, that might just be because of Peeta's presence, but he feels sure that there is nothing much going on when he's not there. Hawthorne seems like the kind of guy that would put on a territorial display if he thought he had the right. Peeta shouldn't feel smug. 

There is no more talk of a rebellion. They are operating under the assumption that their houses are bugged, and Katniss must have warned him somehow, because Gale keeps his defiant talk to a minimum. Still, his constant anger, always directed at Peeta and Haymitch as if they are the ones causing this, wears on them all. It's a relief to finally see the man walking stiffly down the road toward town between his mother and brother, and Katniss going back inside her house alone. 

"Boy we need to talk." Haymitch says as they watch her disappear. Peeta sighs. It's cold, and they both know that the only place they can speak freely is outside. They begin a slow circle of the village.

"You need to keep her away from talk dark and brooding." If only he could.

"Why?" 

"You mean besides the fact she's supposed to be in love with you?" Haymitch can always be counted on to phrase things kindly. "He's got trouble written all over him. I feel for the kid but he's reckless, and he's going to bring us all down if we're not careful. He can't see the big picture. All he can see is that he's staring down a short life at the bottom of a coal pit, and he'll do just about anything to get out of that. He's got nothing to lose and he'll drag Katniss into whatever fool plan he has."

"What about his family?" The President is able to manage Peeta and Katniss effectively enough with threats to theirs. "He must want to keep them safe right?" Haymitch shrugs. 

"Probably doesn't seem real to him. He's never looked Snow in the eye. Anyway the way sees it they're already starving, so how could it get worse? He has no idea, none of you kids do." Haymitch slaps him on the back and ambles back toward his own house, clearly he's said his piece and is done with human interaction for the day.

"I know of one way you could make him feel a little less desperate" Peeta calls after him. He sees Haymitch's shoulder hunch and grins. Katniss has been at Haymitch for days, trying to get him to hire the now unemployed Hazelle Hawthorne as a housekeeper. Haymitch had resisted, apparently attached to his squalor.

"Fine. Tell the girl to send her by tomorrow. Afternoon, not morning."

Getting Katniss to spend time with the correct boyfriend doesn't end up being particularly difficult. 

The hours at the mines have been extended, and the harsh crack down from the new peacekeepers, and the increased security has Katniss at loose ends. She starts appearing at Peeta's place to complain about all the people who won't meet he eye in the street but still show up at her door for medical care.

The district is starving, food arriving spoiled or not at all. Yet somehow the food shipments bound for Victor's Village always arrive. If Snow wants to make their district hate them he's doing a great job.

He and Katniss keep themselves occupied by making up small food packages that her mother can send home with patients. It's not much but it's all they can offer. They're supplied with more than enough for themselves, but they can't feed everyone. 

Katniss gets quieter and more distant. Peeta should have know she was getting pushed to her breaking point. He should have seen that the inaction and the impotence of their situation was bringing her to the point of doing something rash and impulsive. But he's taken by surprise when one evening Prim is at his backdoor looking young and frightened. 

"You've got to come. I think something bad has happened to Katniss." She fills him in a few short sentences, Peacekeepers in her kitchen, Katniss gone, mother scared. Peeta promises to be there soon and watches her dash back across the snow. He goes and collects Haymitch, because they're inviting themselves to dinner.

The peacekeepers remain close mouthed under Haymitch's questioning, saying only that they have a message for Miss Everdeen. That means that she's not being held right? The only place Peeta can think that she might be is outside the fence. He hopes she wasn't that reckless. But it's Katniss, so she probably was. Peeta pushes aside the fear that she's taken Gale Hawthorne and run. She would never leave her sister behind. 

The tension in the room is getting unbearable when she stumbles in. She looks exhausted. Where ever she was, she wasn't out having fun. She flinches when he touches her, and for a moment he thinks she is rejecting him, but then she leans in, and he sees the pain in her eyes. Something bad is definitely going on, she's making up a crazy story and she's hiding her injury.

After the peacekeepers leave she doesn't tell them much else. Bugged house, but it's still frustrating to be kept in the dark. Her mother gives her sleep syrup, and Peeta is surprised she accepts it. She must be in a lot of pain, because they both know how much worse her nightmares can be when she's drugged.

The drug also lowers her inhibitions, and she's handsy and affectionate as he carries her up and puts her to bed. Her touches are certainly welcome, but it's bittersweet. Is this how she really feels? What she really wants from him? Why does she keep him at a distance then?

When she says the words "Stay with me" he hesitates. Does she mean generally, or for a few more minutes, or for the night? Does it really matter? He's slipping off his shoes, unbuckling his belt and climbing in behind her before he can think about it too much. He has missed her so much, missed this. The comfort of holding her in his arms and knowing for certain that she's safe when he wakes in the night. He was so scared for her today, he needs to sleep beside her tonight.

Peeta wakes to sunlight streaming in the window. He had told himself last night that he could be awake and home before anyone else woke. In his sleep hazed brain he forgot how much deeper he sleeps when he's in Katniss' bed. 

He hears voices downstairs and then the front door opens and closes. Silence. Could they have both left? He slides away from Katniss, careful not to wake her. She'd had a rough night just as he thought, so the more sleep the better.

Mrs Everdeen is waiting for him at the kitchen table when he gets downstairs. He's never really been able to see any part of Katniss in her face before, but he sees it now in the stern look she's giving him.

"Sit down Peeta" she says. "We need to talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter, don't get used to it. :)  
> I know this might be feeling a bit canon divergent, I was struggling a bit over the interaction at the village gate, but ultimately decided to keep it in, mostly because I just liked it. 
> 
> And the bit where Peeta stays the night? I always thought that was what happened, so I was surprised when I started reading fanfics and discovered that no one else seemed to see it that way.
> 
> Next up, uncomfortable conversation with Katniss' mother and more Everlark feels. Gonna be the last bit of fluff before things get serious with the Quell.
> 
> Oh and I wrote another bit for the next chapter that really was too canon divergent, so I posted it on my tumblr if you want to take a look. It's called Mrs Mellark, and my tumblr is IamSeeMaree. I'm still figuring out that site so don't expect it to be a nicely arranged blog or anything.
> 
> As always I love to hear what you think and chat about my ideas.


	16. Family History

"Sit down Peeta, we need to talk."

Peeta sits. He wonders how this is going to go. He doesn't know Katniss' mother very well. Unlike Prim who has welcomed him to their family circle with open arms, Mrs Everdeen has kept her distance, determinedly refusing his attempts to charm her. She always looks at him with suspicion. 

He and Katniss have talked about their families enough for him to understand she hasn't been much of a parent to Katniss these last five years. He knows that Katniss was effectively orphaned the day she lost her father. 

It's probably why she's decided to come at him alone instead of confronting them together. She knows that Katniss will ignore anything she says. Really, she doesn't have a leg to stand on, this is Katniss' house, she could host orgies and her mother couldn't do anything about it.

"I know you think that this engagement gives you some sort of rights over my daughter, but you are mistaken." Peeta wonders if she is one of those adults that is convinced that girls are perfectly innocent and never think about sex until a boy comes along to corrupt her. Although that's probably about the truth when it comes to Katniss. 

The silence stretches out. Is she expecting Peeta to say something? What would he say to that? What is she imagining happened last night? She knows very well that she drugged Katniss unconscious. Does she really think so little of him that she thinks he would, do things to Katniss while she was unaware? He was completely prepared to apologize and make nice for the sake of peace, but this is really rubbing him the wrong way.

"If that's how you feel I'm surprised you waited until this morning to confront me."

"I wanted to remove you immediately. Haymitch convinced me not to. He seems to be of the opinion that this is perfectly normal behavior." Her face is a picture of disbelief. Is it really so difficult to believe? "Regardless, I will not tolerate any more of this sort of thing in my house." 

Peeta bites back all the bitter and cruel things he wants to say. Whatever her failings this woman is Katniss' mother, and she is acting out of some sort of misguided desire to protect her. And she's probably right. That he is not good enough. That Katniss will never willingly chose him. Is he a fool for still hoping? 

He knows that Katniss would never have invited him into her bed if she wasn't hopped up on sleep syrup. Is it really a big deal to promise not to do it again? But he just can't. Somehow that feels like giving up all hope. And anyway, it doesn't matter how much distaste Mrs Everdeen clearly feels about their engagement, they really are going to be married soon. He will have every right in the world to sleep next to Katniss then.

They go back and forth some more, so Mrs Everdeen can make extra clear how little she likes him, and Peeta can try to mollify her without exactly promising anything. In the end she seems satisfied, and maybe a bit confused, (Peeta did just talk circles around her) and he feels relatively confident that she won't try to bar him from the house. He hopes she doesn't. He's not sure what side of that argument Katniss would come down on. 

He goes straight over to Haymitch's place, hopefully he can catch him before he goes to sleep.

"Well well well, if it isn't the less star crossed lover himself." Peeta rolls his eyes. 

"Haymitch, what is the deal with Katniss' mother? I think she hates me."

"What, besides the fact that you're sleeping with her teenage daughter?" Peeta shrugs uncomfortably. Why is everyone implying that stuff happened last night? Katniss was unconscious!

"She hated me before that, last night just gave her an excuse."

Haymitch sighs heavily. "I think you give her flashbacks." Peeta gives him a confused look. "Kid, you think this little love triangle you and the girl have got going on with woods boy is complicated, it's nothing to the mess your parents and the Everdeen's created." Oh. He had almost forgotten his father's famous unrequited love for Katniss' mother. No one will ever give him a straight answer when he asks about it. It didn't occur to him to ask Haymitch. But he is about the same age as their parents. 

"Tell me what happened" he demands. 

Haymitch looks away. "I don't really know if you want to hear." Of course he wants to hear! He's been trying to find out for years. Wait is he actually trying to protect Peeta's feelings? That's a first.

"Trust me, nothing you can say will make me think worse of my parents." Haymitch shakes his head. 

"All I really know is the gossip, so I don't have the full story, but I don't think Lilly ever wanted to marry your dad, the parents set it up. And then when she took off with Everdeen, your father, he didn't exactly respect her decision. Made a lot of drama. And then when your mother turned up pregnant, well, it was all quite exciting. The district couldn't talk about anything else for months. I'm sure you can see the parallels to your situation."

It must seem like history is repeating itself in the worst way. Another forced engagement, Katniss longing for the seam boy when she's supposed to be marrying the bakers son. Why couldn't he fall in love with any other girl in the district, one that didn't come from a family with such a messed up history with his own? And what did his father actually do? Perhaps Haymitch is right, he doesn't want to know all the details. He knows enough. Katniss' mother hates him because his father was a jerk over twenty years ago. At least now he can understand. All he can do is hope that in time she sees that he's not his father. 

It's mid afternoon by the time he gets back over to Katniss' house, and her mother tells him she's still in bed. He can see that she is reluctant to let him go up, but she finally steps aside. Peeta is careful to leave the door open. No need to create unnecessary problems.

Katniss is awake and sitting propped up on pillows, paging through a big leather bound book. She smiles at him and pats the spot beside her. At least Katniss isn't barring him from her bed. She slides the book onto his lap and he looks in wonder. It's full of beautifully watercolor botanical illustrations, along with descriptions, and medicinal and food uses. 

"This is amazing" he says. Because it is. She smiles shyly.

"Look, katniss," she says, turning a page. He studies the drawing closely. He has asked her before to describe what a Katniss looked like, and she had told him offhandedly that it was a homely plant, just like her.

"Underrated beauty, just like you." She shakes her head and stares down, and blushing hotly. Katniss can believe that he has loved her for most of his life, but she doesn't believe that he finds her beautiful? Exactly how does she think his attention was held all this time? He really does value and love her loyalty and strength, but really, guys don't obsess over ugly girls.

She takes the book back from him and flips toward the back, where there are pages of descriptions without accompanying illustrations. 

"My mother brought this with her from town, and my dad and I have added plants, but no one could draw well enough to do the pictures. They have to be just right. I was hoping you could help?" She gives him one of those looks, pleading. As if he would say no. 

"I guess it would be a problem if you didn't make the difference between nightlock and blueberries clear." 

"Don't even joke about that!" she snaps, and her hand slips down his arm to clasp his hand tightly. He probably shouldn't joke about nightlock. Or maybe he should if it gets her to hold his hand like that. 

"Of course I'll help. We can add the things we learned from the Games too. Like Rue's trackerjacker leaves." She nods and leans her head into his shoulder. He hopes he didn't upset her by mentioning Rue. She stays there a long time and he starts to feel concerned, but then her breathing evens out and slows down, and Peeta realizes she's asleep. 

He flips though the book again. He feels a strange tug of emotion that she wants him to contribute to what is obviously a treasured family heirloom. As if he's family too. He thinks about the big old recipe book kept on a high shelf in the bakery. Since he has had all this time to experiment in the last six months he's come up with quite a few new recipes, like Katniss' cheese buns. No one has asked him to add them to the family book.

As winter rolls into spring he spends a lot of time with Katniss. They work on the book together, and it's normal. Like they're friends, or even, and he hesitates to think it, but maybe tentatively dating. It's different to how it was on the tour. Then Katniss had clung to him with a kind of frantic neediness, now, even though things are still tense, their interaction has lost that edge of desperation. She isn't all over him like she was, but she is touching him. She holds his hand, and lets her leg rest against his as the work next to each other. Sometimes she lays her head on his shoulder and falls asleep. Prim teasingly calls this a Peeta nap. So he supposes that she doesn't do this with anyone else.

Outside their little bubble things are going to hell in District Twelve, but inside it's almost idyllic. He's not sure what they are anymore, more than friends but less than a couple. He tries not to think about it too much, and enjoy whatever is happening for as long as it lasts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So is Peeta's father sufficiently creepy? I am probably alienating the section of the fandom that see him as a good guy, but isn't it just a bit off, that he was still talking about her years later, yet when they were starving to death there was no anonymous bread deliveries? Something tells me that things didn't exactly end well.
> 
> Ah well anyway, I hope you enjoy the happy feels, because it is all about to end.


	17. Wedding Dresses

Second round toasting is what they call it at the bakery. 

The busiest season for wedding cakes in Twelve is undoubtedly the few months after the reaping, when all the eighteen year old's who have graduated from both the reaping and school rush to formalize their already existing betrothals. It was convenient for his parents, since it coincided with their sons being out of school. Peeta used to work so much over the summer that he was relived to go back to school, with the excuse of classes and homework getting him out of twelve or sometimes sixteen hour shifts. 

He wondered what had happened this past summer? By the time he was really able to decorate again the rush was mostly over. He hadn't really considered it at the time, but now that he thinks back he does remember a few of his brothers school friends stopping him in the street to thank him profusely for decorating their cakes. As if he had some special affection for them that dragged him out of bed to stand on his dodgy leg to decorate a cake just for them. They were just lucky that they missed out on the more desirable dates immediately after the reaping and were pushed back to August and September. 

Peeta never imagined himself marrying in a rush immediately after graduating. If he had ever managed to court Katniss it would have taken time, and if he never did, well, second round toastings were for people who were settling.

It never seemed to have a specific start date like the summer weddings did, but when the first green things started to poke through the mud left by melting snow a kind of optimism, well as much as was ever seen in Twelve, took over the district. And all those who weren't able to find a mate straight out of school seemed to take heart and find someone to marry.

When Peeta allowed himself to imagine it, this was how he saw it happening. That after that final reaping, when she didn't immediately marry Gale Hawthorne, he would approach Katniss. Befriend her. Spend the winter cautiously courting her, bringing her little gifts and talking to her. And when the spring came she would be able to look back and see that it was the best winter since her father's death. Then she would know that she loved him and agree to a spring wedding, and it wouldn't really be a second round toasting, because they would be each other's first choice.

He had been such a child nine months ago.

Because he's getting everything he wanted. Peeta did have his last reaping this summer, and he had spent the winter courting and befriending Katniss. Bringing her cheese buns and drawing her pictures. And they are probably going to be married this spring. It's all twisted up and wrong. This hasn't been a good winter for Katniss. It's been horrible. He's been fooling himself by thinking he's given her a bright spot in it all.

Peeta knows that now. His presence has been a distraction at best. He saw Katniss' face when he went to see her this morning. He saw the cars and confusion, so he wanted to check on her. The last time a Capitol crew showed up unannounced it was the President come to threaten her.

It was almost worse. She was modeling wedding dresses. The way she looked at him. Those dresses had reminded her of all the reasons why she doesn't want him. He was bared from the house, so he couldn't even reassure her, again, that they can privately take things slowly, or not all.

After staring at her house for a while, he decides to take himself off to the bakery, it is second round season after all, they won't say no to extra help.

He is ignored when he steps through the back door of the bakery. It's his family's basic setting these days. They only acknowledge him when he asks direct questions, or one of them has some request (demand). The more real his relationship with Katniss has appeared the more they seem to hate him. They would be pleased with today's development, if he wanted to talk about it with them. 

His mother fears and despises Katniss. His father seems, jealous? (if only he knew). His oldest brother, almost amusingly, seems focused on the fact that from now on Peeta will be unable to decorate cakes for the busiest month of the year. As if Peeta being forced to mentor the games is arranged just to lose him money. His sister-in-law hates him as only the rejected can. 

Tomas is the only welcoming face. He steps in when the rush at the shop front eases and smiles when he sees Peeta. He sidles up and nudges him with an elbow.

"What are you doing here? I thought you had plans with Katniss?" he murmurs. Peeta tries to smile but it turns into a grimace. 

"She's got a photo shoot. Wedding dresses." 

"Ah." There's a world of understanding the sound.

Peeta thinks about skipping his scheduled time at the bakery the next day, he had a bad night, only getting a couple of hours sleep. And what can they really do to him? He ends up going in anyway. It's Saturday, which means that it's decorating day, since most celebrations in Twelve happen on Sunday, the only day off. He doesn't want to disappoint brides who might be marrying their second choice. Plus his family has figured out a way to punish Peeta, assign extra hours to Tomas, effectively preventing them from spending time together.

When the peacekeepers post a mandatory viewing notice on on the board in the square he is extra glad. He hopes it's not the wedding dresses, but if it is he doesn't want to sit though that alone. He and Tomas have no plans, but he cooks for two and his brother shows up in time to eat with him before the viewing.

The dresses are awful. It's hard to believe that these monstrosities come from the talented hands of Cinna and Portia. Mocking them makes the evening almost fun. And the stupid game show they created to let the Capitol audience choose them? Are Peeta and Katniss going to have any say at all in this wedding? So much for not being a piece in their games. At least he can laugh about it in this moment that's not life and death.

Their moods drop when the special ends and President Snow takes the stage. Announcements he makes personally are never good. Especially when they're about the games. Peeta has been trying not to think about mentoring. After seeing how hard Haymitch has fought for them he knows that what they say about him around the district isn't true. That the kids die because he's a hopeless drunk and doesn't care. All those kids who died for twenty three years died in spite of Haymitch, not because of him. Haymitch is clever and sneaky and resourceful, can Peeta really believe that he and Katniss can do better?

The next games are a quell. A special kind games where they pile on an additional horror. Haymitch won the last one. He had to outlive a field of forty eight, instead of the twenty four Peeta and Katniss were a part of. It's not entirely a surprise, Haymitch has muttered something about forty seven a few times in passing, but it's still stomach churning to think of. He and Katniss were lucky, they never had to come home to the eyes of a family that was wishing you dead so that their child could be alive. They'd seen enough of that on the tour, to face it in your own district where you could never get away... And Haymitch had to deal with three families like that.

The next words take a moment sink in. Existing Victors? Then Tomas is tackling him in an embrace. Peeta pushes him off and rushes into the bathroom to vomit. Puking is such a stupid emotional reaction. He's just glad he didn't do it when he was reaped. Probably only because his body had the chance to cycle past it because of Katniss going first. Katniss. She's going back for sure. The other spot is for him or Haymitch. Haymitch always chooses Katniss over Peeta, but will he choose her over himself? The only way to keep her safe is to make sure it's him going to the arena. He can't go back. He thought he knew what he was doing the first time, thought he was scared when he decided to die to save her. He had no idea. But still. He can never live on if he knows that he could have saved her. He's so scared.

When he staggers out of the bathroom he's surprised to see Tomas hovering, tear tracks drying on his cheeks. He had forgotten he was here.

"Haymitch" he manages. He needs to talk to Haymitch. Tomas puts his arm around his waist as they walk, Peeta is suddenly as unsteady on his prosthetic leg as the first week he had it.

Haymitch is sitting in his living room tossing back liquor like he's hoping to die of liver failure sometime in the next few months. Peeta wants to beg, to plead. This man has pulled off the impossible before, saved them both. Peeta wants to ask him to do it again. The devastated look Haymitch gives him stops him from trying. So they stare at each other. It's Tomas that breaks the silence.

"So where do you stand on this old man?" They both start and look at him in confusion. Tomas turns to Peeta. "Come on, the thought must have crossed your mind. He's known you for what, nine months? Some of these other victors have been his friends for years. Do you really think he's going to choose you over his best friend?" Peeta hadn't thought about it. It's a horrible thought. He's used to Haymitch putting Katniss ahead of him. It annoys him sometimes but he's usually okay with it. But abandoning them both? He imagines Haymitch going into the arena with her and abandoning her to ally with his friend from Eleven.

Haymitch, belying his apparent drunken state, throws his bottle, smashing it into the wall in warning, a few inches from Tomas' head. Or perhaps he is that drunk and he missed.

"You can get out if you're going to stand there and judge me." Tomas is cringing now, his moment of bravery over the instant the bottle hit the wall. Peeta can't let this continue. 

"Haymitch, you chose Katniss last time, and I agreed to it. But now you owe me, so this time you're going to choose her again, and I will be going in with her." Haymitch switches his attention back and shakes his head in disgust. 

"Doesn't it ever occur to you that you might be worth something too? Perhaps more than her?" 

Peeta smiles cynically. "Sometimes. It never lasts long."

There doesn't seem to be much to say after that. Haymitch offers them some of his white liquor, but Peeta's stomach isn't up to it. 

Tomas leads him home and puts him to bed, and then gets in beside him. The last time they shared a bed was when Peeta was twelve. It was the night before his first reaping, and Peeta had been certain it was going to be him. He couldn't stop crying, and finally Tomas had let him cram in with him. When his mother had found them together the next morning she had beaten them both (in places that wouldn't show on camera of course) for their perversion.

"Do you remember that first boy I killed?" Peeta finally says into the darkness. 

"Yeah."

"It happened so fast. He just came up behind me, and it was a reflex. Just like I always did with you and Dav. Flipped him over. But I had a knife in my hand. And I could see it in his face, if I let him go he'd kill me." 

"Yeah, so?" Tomas has learned not to express any sympathy on the rare times Peeta talks specifically about the games. 

"His name was Tomly. Funny coincidence hey? I've killed him a thousand times in my dreams. Except after I slit his throat, its not him at all, it's you. I would have done it too, that first day you woke me, if I'd had a knife." Silence. 

"So are you kicking me out?" Tomas says finally. No sympathy he reminds himself. Sure he's had his fair share of nightmares about Peeta's games. But to endure that. Constantly. It's all he can do not to cry. But this isn't about him.

"Just warning you. Don't touch me and don't try to wake me, even if I'm having a bad one."

"It's a big bed. I think I think I can handle that." Tomas manages to sound a lot more casual than he feels. He's made this commitment, to be there for Peeta. It's so minor compared to what Peeta is willing to do, calmly planning to die for Katniss. He's not going to run now. 

Long after Peeta falls asleep his brother stares at the ceiling, alternately contemplating what it would feel like to have your throat cut, and berating himself for being so self centered at a time like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I kind of slipped into Tomas' point of view there at the end, but it felt necessary. 
> 
> So much of my head canon in this one. The idea of Peeta killing Tomas in his nightmares has been there since I wrote that initial scene in Worthless, I just now found a place to put it. Maybe I should have just left it implied, but hey this isn't exactly serious literature.
> 
> Is it weird that I've started to visualize my regular commenters as characters from the books?
> 
> Anyway, as always, let me know what you think.


	18. Reverberations

Peeta jolts awake before dawn with the feeling that someone is in the room. Not Katniss. He turns and sees Tomas' back all the way on the other side of the bed. Huh. So that's how friends share a bed.

Katniss. He needs to go see her. He'd been a zombie last night, but now... She might need him. She's been relying on him so much lately. Peeta is ashamed at how self involved he was last night. He says as much to Tomas as he stumbles out of bed and grabs his clothes off the floor. He opens the front door just in time to see Katniss crossing the green and falling into Gale Hawthorne's arms.

He feels Tomas' hand on his shoulder. Peeta has to turn away, from them, from the wordless pity in his brother's eyes, from everyone. 

"I'll just go out the back then." Tomas says finally. Peeta ignores him.

Peeta lies in his bed, alone and lonely. As if the last six months never happened. He's back to where he was. The useless extra victor. The one that could never have survived without a girl. The one no one loves or needs. Snow is going to take care of that though. He doesn't want to die. But he can't see any other way. He imagines what it would be like to win the quell. To come home with just Haymitch. To look across the green each day and see the empty house she used to live in. To see her sister and mother kicked back to the seam to starve without her.

Peeta would rather they both die in there than to have to come home without her. But he can't stand to see her die. If they both die he goes first. He knows that will be hard for her. He doesn't think it's presuming too much to believe she's come to care for him. But she will go on. She has too many people relying on her to do anything else. And in time she'll get over her guilt and marry Gale Hawthorne. (If a tiny selfish part of him hopes she never quite forgets him, never marries, he ignores it.) In time she will be happy. In time she will forget him.

Prim will grow up healthy and well fed, and perhaps Haymitch and Katniss will eventually bring home a few more victors to populate the village. Perhaps someone will even want his house. When he compares the two possible futures it's obvious which one is better. 

But Peeta has to make it happen. Right now he imagines the victors in the career districts will be meeting, putting together training programs, and maybe even deciding who will volunteer, just like they do before every reaping. If this time it's between victors instead of eighteen year olds, well, that just makes it more terrifying. 

Training programs. 

Peeta knows how to train. It's something that Katniss and Haymitch, growing up seam have probably never experienced. Sure seam kids played random pick up games of jungle ball on the school playground and presumably in back alleys of their neighborhoods. Some of them were amazingly good. But it's just entertainment to them. A way of having a moment of fun, not something to expend serious energy on. Seam kids don't have calories to spare for organized sports.

But Peeta had. He's had years of organized sports. He knows how to work out, how to get stronger. How to build endurance. How to build muscle. Perhaps he's not so useless.

Energized, he jumps out of bed. He calls Effie to tell her his plan, she is, after crying and telling him how wrong it all is for fifteen minutes, extremely excited about his idea. Peeta doesn't flatter himself, she is after all excited about everything. But it's still a good start. He's sure he'll be receiving lots of packages from her on the next train.

His first stop is Haymitch's place. His mentor is passed out on the couch. Peeta didn't come here to talk to him. He goes straight into the library. Haymitch has books on everything, he must have some on diet and exercise. Peeta has visited this room often enough to get a sense of Haymitch's system, and sure enough the books he wants are in the back, in the shelves that are most difficult to reach, in what Haymitch once described as the "crap people give me that I have no interest in reading section".

The book "Train Like a Career" has a note on the flyleaf.

try to stop being such an embarrassment  
Brutus

Peeta is impressed that embarrassment is spelled correctly. 

Next stop is to see Tomas. Who laughs uncontrollably when he hears Peeta's request.

"You want me to use my moves on your girl?" Peeta scowls, which makes Tomas laugh harder. "And now you both pull the same faces. I'm not sure if I want that rubbing off on me" he adds, tilting his hips suggestively. 

"Just shut up and come and teach her to wrestle okay? The dirty kind, as in BREAKING THE RULES, you idiot."

Since the Hob is no more he has to hunt down Ripper's house. People are wary about giving him directions, but once he tells them it's for Haymitch they seem to recognize him. Wow. He thought everyone in the district knew him on sight. He really is the second best victor. He is able to bribe her with an amount equal to three months of Haymitch's purchases. Well what she says it is. Peeta doesn't have time to haggle, so he lets her swindle him. It's a good idea to have her owing him anyway.

Then Peeta is at Katniss' to talk to her mother about diet. Mrs Everdeen finally looks at him with something other than distaste in her eyes, and then he's back at Haymitch's. 

Haymitch is still passed out. Which shouldn't be surprising, but Peeta feels like he's gotten days worth of stuff done, and yet in all that time Haymitch has gone from sprawled upright, to sprawled on his side. But this is better. If he can go through the house and get rid of the liquor before Haymitch is awake then there will be much less of a fuss. Peeta doesn't kid himself that he'll find it all, but hopefully Haymitch will be smart and ration whatever he has left to ease his withdrawal. 

Katniss is sitting on the couch next to Haymitch, both of them looking hung over, when he comes down stairs with his final load of empty bottles. Peeta tries to hide his annoyance with how they're behaving, and they don't seem too happy with him either.

Peeta doesn't care. They will train, he's going to make them. He is going to do something worthwhile in his life, and he's not going to let the people he's trying to save stand in his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peeta's reaction to the quell announcement is so interesting to me, Katniss says he's like another person. He becomes trainer Peeta, so that's what I'm going to be exploring for the next couple of chapters. This is the beginning of that.


	19. Train Like a Career

Peeta had tried being nice. He gave them their hangover day. He tried to be sympathetic when they whined and complained and sabotaged the basic fitness test. But now he's done. It's 6:45, and neither has bothered to show up for training. Which he told them was going to start at 6:30. They think that they can ignore him. That he's too nice. They should know better by now.

He decides to start at with Katniss. She is his main priority. He saw her mother leave the house hours ago, and her sister will be still asleep, so he lets himself in through the unlocked back door and goes up to Katniss' room. The sight of her weakens his resolve. She is thrashing and tangled in her blankets, clearly having a nightmare. When his name whispers past her lips he almost gives in, climbs into her bed and holds her close. But he can't. That isn't what she needs. It breaks Peeta's heart a little to shake her roughly instead, to demand that she get up and dressed and meet him outside in fifteen minutes, but he does it. He will do what needs to be done.

He feels less constraint with Haymitch.

It takes a bit longer than fifteen minutes, but eventually they're standing on the green in the spring sunshine, giving him matching glares. That he can handle.

Peeta consults his notebook. Yesterday, after the debacle that was the fitness tests, he had created individualized training programs based on what he knew about them. They only have three months, it's unreasonable to expect to gain mastery of a new skill in that time, so his basic plan is to build on their natural strengths as much as possible. For Katniss that means focusing on agility and endurance, while Haymitch is going to be primarily working on strength and hand to hand combat. Peeta plans on working out with both of them and mostly trying to gain as much coordination as he can with his prosthetic.

They don't need to know all that. Even if they cared, which they don't, they are showing a remarkable lack of interest in the contents of his notebooks.

"First up, we are going to run," Peeta announces, and leads off down the road to town. He looks back, and sees them still standing in the same spot. "What, you two can't even keep up with a cripple?" 

Katniss snarls and launches herself forward. She hates it when he calls himself a cripple. Haymitch sighs and begins making a shuffling motion that Peeta supposes is meant to be a jog. Good enough. Katniss falls into place beside him as they make their way down the road.

She maintains a pointed silence as they turn off the road to parallel the fence. The newest crew of peacekeepers have cleared a wide space on each side of it, creating an ideal running trail. Peeta assumes her silence means that he isn’t forgiven for the rude awakening he gave her. She needs to get used to it, because he's not her fake boyfriend anymore. He's her coach. Coaches don't coddle, they demand the best and refuse to listen to excuses.

Peeta is impressed when she lasts a mile and a half. (He knows that because he measured and marked the trail yesterday.) She is clearly suffering the last quarter mile but he doesn't show any sympathy. When she finally stops, doubled over and panting he offers her some water from his flask and gives her a few minutes to recover. Then he turns back the way they came, moving a bit slower in concession to Katniss' state. 

He can feel her glare boring into his back, but after a moment she is falling in beside him again. He let's her set the pace all the way back, taking walk breaks when she does. Peeta can feel her resentment building. She hates that he's better than her at this. He doesn't tell her that it's taken him nine long months to reach this level. Even though he used to run all the time as part of his wrestling training, learning to do it with his prosthetic was like starting from nothing.

They are almost back to the village when they finally meet up with Haymitch. He's still working on that shuffle, but now he's wheezing like a miner with black lung, which is odd considering he's never worked in the mines. But Haymitch has done plenty of damage to his body without coal dust. Peeta allows them both to walk the rest of the way back, and tries to ignore the looks they shoot him. He doesn't know why they resent him for doing this. Would they prefer to enter the arena entirely unprepared?

It's almost amusing when Katniss and Haymitch head toward their houses the moment they reach the village. Did they think that a run was the entire workout? Peeta redirects them to his backyard where he's getting set up for weight training. He is still reading the books and figuring this all out, and waiting on supplies to be delivered, so they're going to have to make do with body weight exercises. Katniss and Haymitch seem pleased with this idea until he starts putting them through the push up progression. Peeta wants to keep it challenging but attainable, but it's hard to gauge what their limits are when they act like the slightest exertion is the worst thing that's ever happened to them.

It takes over two hours to get them through a workout that should have taken forty five minutes. By the end of it Peeta is finding it hard to remember why he wants to save these people. Did he think he liked them? Because he doesn't anymore. And they clearly despise him. If Katniss sneers at him one more time he may be able to finally move on and date a girl who likes him. And when did Haymitch become such a jerk? Oh, right. 

When they part ways it’s with relief on all sides. Peeta had planned on skill and combat training for the afternoon but he doesn’t feel like looking at his fellow victors any more today.

The next morning starts out exactly the same. Peeta is waiting on the green in the middle of Victors Village at 6:30am. Alone. He sighs and lets himself into Katniss' room for her wake up call. It's unfair that she's making him do this. It's hard enough keeping his hands off her in general, but seeing her lying there all pink cheeked and sleep mussed. She's clearly trying to distract him.

His touch might be a bit rougher than it needs to be as he shakes her awake. But it's not enough to make her yelp in pain. But she does, and are those tears in her eyes? She starts to roll out of bed, but freezes with another sound of pain. He didn't do anything that time.

"I can't move," she mutters, glaring at him. Peeta feels himself turning pink. He thought she was faking yesterday, but he must have truly maxed her out. Katniss has always seemed so fit, so far superior to himself athletically, he simply assumed she could keep up with him. 

Ashamed of all the snarky thoughts he had about her laziness, Peeta goes into the bathroom and turns on the water for a bath. He wonders if Haymitch is having an equally hard time moving around this morning. Peeta decides to check on him later, Katniss is still his top priority. When it's full enough he helps her shuffle into the room and then steps out. He's debating whether he should head over to Haymitch's while she soaks when she calls for him. Katniss is standing beside the tub, still in her nightdress.

"I can't get my clothes off. I can't even get my leg high enough to get in," she says, staring at the water. Is she asking him to undress her? Surely even Katniss can see that’s not something friends do. She gives him look that makes it clear she knows the path his mind is heading down.

"Just lift me into the tub Peeta. I can soak with my clothes on." Once she's into the water she lays back with a sigh of pleasure. This is not something Peeta needs to see. He's going to leave now. He is not standing here watching the hem of her nightdress drift up her thighs.

"Try to rub your muscles and gradually increase the range of motion," he says brusquely, "I'll be back in a bit."

"Can't you help?" she murmurs, not even bothering to open her eyes. He wonders what she'd do if he got into that tub with her. Oddly enough that idea is sobering. Because she'd freak and shove him out, he has no doubt. It might seem like she's flirting with him, but he knows better by now. He also knows better than to give in to her request to massage her, while in the bath.

"I'll see if Prim's awake. I'm sure she’ll be far more help than me." He closes the door as he leaves, shutting out the image of Katniss with her hair floating around her, like some sort of siren, tempting him.

Katniss' mother and sister are both awake and stand ready to assist which makes things simple. He doesn't miss the look her mother gives him as she sees him coming out of Katniss' room. He thought they were good, united in the plan to save Katniss. It seems he was wrong. Either that or giving Katniss a bath crosses a line.

Haymitch is moving more easily than Katniss, probably because he didn't try very hard yesterday. Peeta still runs him a bath and leaves him with some salve from Mrs Everdeen.

When he gets back to Katniss’ house, he finds her sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast. She must be feeling better if she made it down stairs. He sits down across from her and her mother silently slides a plate in front of him. So the truce still stands. He thanks her politely and she nods before leaving the room.

"I don't understand what's wrong with me." Katniss says, between bites. "I'm stronger than this. What we did yesterday shouldn't hurt this much."

"Don't forget about your injury. I had to carry you everywhere. And you haven't been very active since, so you lost condition. I used to be like this every year after the first day of hard training for wrestling. Don't worry, it comes back fast." She looks up, meeting his eyes with a small smile.

"Who carried you to the bath?"

"Tomas," Peeta replies, keeping his face perfectly straight. A giggle bursts out of her, and Peeta can't help but smile as well at the image of his brother carrying him in his arms and putting him in the bath.

"When you're finished eating we'll head out for a run." The smile drops from her face instantly. Peeta holds up his hand to ward off any protests. "It might sound bad, but trust me, it's the fastest way to recover." She sighs and looks away, but grudgingly limps out the door behind him. Peeta keeps the run short and slow, and the workout easy, but you wouldn't think that hearing Katniss and Haymitch complain.

Today he can stand their company long enough to eat lunch with them, but still, everyone is relieved when they part ways afterwards.

Peeta goes to the bakery to borrow one of the hand carts and heads over to the train station. Today is the day the supply train from the Capitol comes in, and if Effie has been her usual efficient self there will be a lot of packages waiting for him. He's not disappointed. Thick padded mats for practicing combat, special shoes and clothes for all three of them, and a box containing discs of past hunger games. Peeta had thought about ordering some of the machines and weights that he'd seen in training last year, but he didn't want to push it and make what they’re doing completely obvious. Training for the games is supposed to be illegal after all. Instead he had visited the ironworker in town, and asked him to make weights out of iron scrap. Peeta would rather give his money to a local anyway.

That evening Peeta drops his chosen disc into the player and he, Katniss and Haymitch settle in front of the television. Katniss invites her family to join them but Prim makes a face and announces she has homework, and Mrs Everdeen drifts off to… somewhere. Leaving the three of them to spend the next three hours watching fourteen year old Finnick Odair trap and impale his way to victory in complete silence.

"It's harder when you've been there." Katniss says, turning to Haymitch for confirmation. He nods wearily. There doesn't seem to be much else to say.

Sleep doesn’t come easily that night, the scenes from what Peeta watched intermingling with his memories of his own games. In the darkest part of the night it’s difficult to tell the difference. Was it a slash from a sword or a stab from a trident that almost killed him? He gets up earlier than usual and bakes for hours. 

When Peeta walks out his front door at 6:27 he feels a clench in his chest, Katniss and Haymitch are standing on the green, waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break, I've had to take care of some things in my real life this month, plus I got distracted by various other writing projects. Please take a look at the other things I've posted recently.
> 
> Anyway I hope this was worth the wait, and you all enjoy trainer Peeta. He takes this stuff seriously! You will be seeing more of him because I intend to spend a few more chapters in this period, and next chapter Tomas teaches Katniss to wrestle. So good times, and hopefully I am back to posting more frequently.


	20. Hope

The days that had dragged, full of resentment, when they had began training are long gone. Now the time seems to be slipping past faster than Peeta can track. The last days of his life are passing at an unnatural speed.

Once Katniss stopped fighting him on every little thing and had begun to enjoy her gains she’d excelled at the training. She can now surpass him easily at a sprint, although he still has an edge over her at distance running, she has improved radically at that too. 

Haymitch is miserably sober, something he hasn’t stopped complaining about, but for the first time in as long as Peeta can remember the man is starting to look healthy. 

That’s not to say that there aren’t a few glitches along the way. 

Like that day when Tomas had first shown up to train with them.

Katniss had ignored him as they warmed up and she had maintained a steady silence as she ran few miles with Tomas on her other side. It wasn’t until Peeta announced they were wrestling and paired her off with his brother that the drama began. 

“No,” was all she said crossing her arms defensively, “I don’t want to work with him. He can help Haymitch.” Peeta shakes his head and she glares at him. “Why can’t you teach me?” she demands, and Peeta swings his arms, feeling uncomfortable. 

“He’s better. Don’t you want to learn from the best?” The glare she gives him could melt iron. He refuses to give in. 

“Ah, why don’t I go show Haymitch some stuff while you guys work this out,” Tomas says nervously. They move onto the mats and Haymitch smirks at them until Tomas knocks him to the ground.

As always it’s Peeta who finally breaks the staredown.

“Why are you so worried about this?” he asks and she looks away. He’s getting frustrated with her pointless obstinacy when she looks back at him, her eyes wide and anxious.

“I don’t like people touching me,” she says. Really? Because she’s seemed happy enough to touch him from almost the day they were reaped. She huffs out a frustrated sound. “I mean I don’t like touching anyone but you, my family, and sometimes Haymitch. I can’t let him touch me like that. I’ll panic, I know it. Please why can’t you do it?” 

“That’s the reason why I can’t. People you trust aren’t going to be fighting with you in the arena. You can’t go into the situation with trust. You need to be a bit unsure, and besides, I can’t go all out against you, I’d be afraid of hurting you. He doesn’t care. I’m not doing this to torture you, I really do think this is the best thing. Plus this way I get to take out all my aggression against Haymitch.” This manages to coax a half smile from her, until her eyes drift back to where Tomas has a cursing Haymitch pinned to the mats.

“I can’t do that. Not yet. Can I start with something less, less than that?” Peeta nods and goes to speak to Tomas. 

“So what’s going on? Am I that intimidating? Would it help if I tell her she terrifies me half the time?” Tomas is in that defensive place, Peeta has seen him like this with their mother, trying to defuse the situation before it turns violent. 

“Calm down, she’s not angry.” Tomas looks doubtful. “She’s just freaked out about having a virtual stranger put his hands all over her, and trap her. She doesn’t have the best memories of that.” 

Katniss goes and stands on the mat, shaking her arms and legs her eyes flitting between them and the ground. 

Tomas steps up to face her and they look at each other, and then back at Peeta, as if asking permission. He wants to laugh at how nervous they both are. His eyes drift to the knife in Katniss’ belt and he asks for it. She hands it over looking confused. Peeta gives her a grin.

“I’d rather you didn’t stab my brother. I’m sure he’s had enough of victors trying to kill him.” Her eyes flash back to Tomas, but this time she’s looking at him with curiosity, not anxiety, which is an improvement. He turns away and focuses his attention on Haymitch, who is now snoozing in the sun. High commitment to fitness that one. Peeta sort of gets it. They all know Haymitch isn’t the one going in. Peeta wouldn’t be surprised if the two papers in the bowl both have Haymitch’s name on them, to guarantee the excitement of him bravely volunteering for the love of his life. The Capitol does love their dramatic moments.

He decides to let sleeping mentors lie and go through his own strength training routine. He usually has to coach Katniss and Haymitch through their own weight circuit (they’ll slack and cut corners otherwise) so now he simply does his own workout separately. 

He’s hanging from the pull up bar trying not to watch Tomas as he tentatively demonstrates different holds and ways to escape them. Katniss has been virtually silent the whole time, a frown of concentration on her face. 

“Does your mother still hit you?” she asks suddenly, breaking the silence. Peeta can’t believe she decided to use that as some sort of icebreaker. He wants to go over there and drag her socially inept self away from his brother, because how can she ask something like that? Sure their mother’s abuse may be the worst kept secret in District Twelve, but it’s their choice to talk about it or not, not something you bring up in casual conversation.

“You mean since you threatened to kill her because you thought I was Peeta?” Tomas is replying, and is that a laugh in his voice? “Not really. Just one time, and I walked out and stayed with Peeta.” he’s talking without shame and Peeta realises he’s staring. He pulls his eyes away and does another chin up. He wants to hear this, and if they notice him listening he’s sure they’ll clam up.

“I think she finally gets that she’s not in control anymore,” Tomas is saying, “it didn’t hurt when you and Peeta showed up the next morning like you were checking on me. I think she thought she was done for. She’s terrified of you.” And Katniss giggles. It’s a rare sound Peeta loves hearing. 

“But what about Peeta?” she asks in a softer voice. Tomas looks confused.

“Do you mean does she hit him? No way. Not since the games. She’s terrified of him now too. It’s weird, I mean we watched, we saw what happened. But it wasn’t until you were home that it really sunk in. That you guys can kill people. That you have killed people. I mean damn, Peeta nearly killed me when I woke him up one time.” It’s Katniss turn to look confused. 

“I’ve woken him up lot’s of times. He’s never hurt me?” she asks. Tomas shrugs. “Maybe it’s because I’m there when he falls asleep, so it’s not a surprise?” she continues, not noticing the way his mouth has dropped open. Of course she assumes that Peeta has told Tomas about their sleeping arrangements on the tour. And of course he hasn’t done it. It feels too precious to allow his brother to joke about and analyse to death. Well now he knows what he’ll be pestered about tonight. 

Peeta glances over and sees that Haymitch has woken from his nap and is smirking in his direction. Done with eavesdropping on conversations that are apparently only uncomfortable to him, he drops down and slumps next to Haymitch. 

“Don’t get jealous now,” Haymitch mutters, “they’re bonding over you.” He rolls his eyes. He’s not jealous. It’s just weird to hear them talking about him like that.

But from then on Tomas and Katniss seemed more comfortable around each other, and soon enough she’s being pinned to the mat without having a panic attack or whatever else she expected to happen. Peeta still confiscates her knife before they begin, just to be safe.

He refuses to dwell on the fact that Gale Hawthorne’s name wasn’t on that list of people she likes touching her. Because perhaps she left him off because she was being polite, or maybe he’s included as part of her family. He’s not thinking about it.  
He also refuses to think about the real reason he can’t wrestle with her. The way his stomach clenches and rolls at the thought of having to pin her beneath him she struggles to escape. He can’t think of it. He doesn’t need to consider the visceral horror he feels at the idea, because it’s not going to happen. She and Tomas are getting on fine and training is progressing at a rate that pleases him. He’s increasing their weights or distances every week, and even Haymitch is making steady gains. 

Madge drops by more often than Peeta ever expected. At first he thought it was because she was missing Katniss. He knows she doesn’t have many other friends. But then he notices she tends to show up when his brother is there. 

When Tomas shyly asks if he can walk her back to town and she blushes and nods Peeta tries to push down the surge of jealousy he feels. Just because he’s never going to have a chance at a happy ending doesn’t mean his brother doesn’t deserve one. Hell, he deserves it more that most people he knows. Still, watching them walk off side by side, arms brushing tentatively, leaves him feeling empty.

It doesn’t help when Gale Hawthorne starts showing up on Sundays. Peeta appreciates the lessons in snares. Really. And he tries to get along with the guy. Gale even seems to be making an effort not to be constantly insulting. That’s not to say that he doesn’t belittle Peeta and Haymitch’s skills every chance he gets. But the lessons are useful, and Peeta needs to soak up every scrap of knowledge he can if he’s going to keep Katniss alive in the arena. However with Tomas and Madge pairing off, and Gale monopolising Katniss’ attention as much as he can Peeta feels like the loneliest person in the world. 

The dinners that Mrs Everdeen insists on hosting for everyone each Sunday are always an uncomfortable end to a stressful day. Gale is generally the problem. He clearly despises everyone except the Everdeens, although he isn’t directly hostile (small gifts). Haymitch isn’t blameless either. He treats Gale with a sort of amused disdain, and refuses to even speak to Madge. At least he gets on with Tomas and only occasionally indulges in a sniping match with Katniss. 

Peeta knows he could do more to smooth things over, make the whole experience more comfortable. But he’s so tired of being the one who has to make everyone else comfortable. Why doesn’t anyone try to make things easier for him? He’s going to die in a month or so and he’s so done with trying to make everyone else happy. 

They’re all sitting stiffly in the living room, where Mrs Everdeen instructed them to ‘relax before dinner.’ It sure is relaxing to be crammed onto a couch between Gale and Tomas as the three of them watch the objects of their affection braid Primrose’s hair, while Haymitch lounges in the only armchair. 

“Peeniss!” Gale shouts suddenly, and everyone’s heads swivel. Peeta focuses on his crotch. He doesn’t see anything to be exclaiming about. Gale has one of Madge’s Capitol newspaper’s in his hands and a horrified look on his face. “Peeniss!!” he exclaims again. Everyone stares at him. Peeta is the first to catch on. 

“Yeah, I prefer Everlark personally,” he says attempting to turn it into a joke. At least Haymitch laughs. Katniss gives him an uneasy glance. They’ve talked before about the awful label some of the trashier newspapers have taken to calling them by. At least they’re giving them good odds for a win. 

“And you’re okay with this,” Gale asks Katniss, sounding disgusted. She doesn’t reply, turning red and scowling at the floor instead. Leaving the burden of communication on Peeta, like always. Except he’s not being diplomatic anymore. 

“Yeah Gale, we’re super happy about everything The Capitol does to us, and we totally get veto rights on any stupid nickname they decide to give us. Thanks for pointing it out.”

Gale glares at him, opening and closing his mouth a few times, but unable to come up with a reply. Peeta may feel a certain smugness about being verbally faster than his rival.

Fortunately at that moment Mrs Everdeen appears to call them to the table. Katniss grabs his arm and holds him back.

“That wasn’t very nice,” she hisses in his ear. Yeah it’s all Peeta’s fault and his job to keep everyone happy. 

“You know what? I don’t care. I’m tired of him acting like this is all some plot to ruin his life, when it’s us that have to go through hell again. Maybe it’s Gale’s turn to be nicer to the people who’ll probably dead soon.” Her eyes widen and she pulls away from him, and he immediately regrets his harsh words. 

“Katniss, wait, I’m sorry. I just, some days I can’t deal with it okay?” She nods, her face softening, and she sways toward him. He feels himself leaning toward her too. And he can’t deal with that today either. Not today or any other day. 

“Come on, your mother’s waiting for us,” he says, turning away abruptly. She refuses to look at him for the rest of the evening. 

Peeta lets them have Sundays off from watching the games recaps, so after dinner when Gale, Tomas and Madge leave Katniss announces she’s going to walk them out. Peeta goes home to his empty house, and pretends not to notice that he can see her lingering with Gale at the gate of the village. Tonight’s going to be a bad one, but he makes an attempt to unwind by taking a hot shower. He feels a sort of explosive sadness, as if at any moment he won’t be able to keep it all in, he won’t be able to put on an acceptable face and show himself in public. 

Sometimes all he wants to do is scream and rage at the injustice of it all. Why is this his life? Why did any of this come to him? He’s not made for this. He was meant to have a small boring life, his biggest dream this time last year was to have one person truly love him. He was never meant to be famous. He was never meant to be an enemy of the government. He isn’t special. 

After laying in bed and glaring at the ceiling for a few hours he gives up on sleep and goes down stairs. 

The early summer heat makes the night air balmy and pleasant, so he steps outside and lays back on one of the recliners he has on his back porch. It’s the dark of the moon and the sky is lit up with uncountable stars. He tries to focus on the beauty and forget everything else. Perhaps he can sleep here. 

“I don’t suppose that’s alcoholic, is it?” Haymitch asks as he settles into the other recliner. Tomas’ recliner. Tomas who’s been subtly drawing away ever since the quell announcement. 

Peeta looks over at the glass of water he picked up on his way through the kitchen.

“You can have it if you want.” Haymitch grabs it up instantly, but a few seconds later he’s glaring. 

“Thanks for the trick brat,” but he keeps hold of the glass as he makes himself comfortable.

“I don’t know if I can do it.” Peeta says softly. It’s a relief to say it out loud. Haymitch doesn’t have to ask what ‘it’ is.

“Kid I think we both know who’s name is going to be drawn. No one is going to fault you if you don’t step forward. Hell the girl will be ecstatic.” Peeta thinks about it. What it would be like to watch Haymitch go into the arena. What it would be like to come back here alone. Because in the end as much as he wants Katniss to live he knows the odds of either of them surviving is vanishingly small.

“I’m not afraid to die. It’s the arena… again. But to come home alone, that would be worse. I wouldn’t be able to go on.” Haymitch snorts.

“You can endure anything. You just haven’t had to do it yet. You don’t even know what it is to be a victor yet. You’ve never stood alone at the end with the weight of all the dead resting on you. You’ve never made that train ride home knowing that there’s coffins in the baggage car. As much as you two have struggled this last year you’ve always known that your ally is warm and breathing three doors down. 

“You’ve never stood on that stage and looked into the eyes of some scared starving kid and known, without a doubt, that they are going to die before the month is out. You’ve never had your virginity sold to the highest bidder. Don’t tell me you can’t go on, when the rest of us have been going on for years.”

Peeta’s breath catches at all the virulent honesty spewing from Haymitch’s mouth. He’s never heard his mentor speak so freely, he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing and make him clam up.

“They sell victors?” he asks cautiously. Because the rest, he doesn’t pretend to understand, but he’s imagined it. But being sold sexually? “Why didn’t it happen to us?” Haymitch laughs harshly.

“Oh it was supposed to. At the end of the tour you were both looked over by buyers. Don't you remember? But I managed to convince Snow that it would ruin the star crossed lovers facade if even a hint of anyone else got out. And those Captiol johns do like to brag. It was a near thing though. Lucky everyone knew Katniss would snap, and Snow didn’t want to deal with another Annie Cresta. You were almost put up alone, sort of a consolation prize to keep her out of it, but the leg saved you. Seems like they don’t pay as well for damaged goods, so it wasn’t worth it.” Peeta is frozen. He can’t lie here and listen to this. But Haymitch isn’t giving him a choice. Now he’s started he’s telling it all.

“And that’s another thing you’ve never had to endure. Choosing one kid knowing that it’s dooming the other. Do you know how many games I’ve gone into hoping that one dies early so I don’t have to make that choice? Do you think I wanted to leave you dying in the mud so I could save the money for Katniss? Do you know how it takes a bit of your soul every time you have to choose? Of course offering one kid as a whore to protect the other was a new low, even for me.”

Haymitch lays back and sips his water, apparently exhausted by all his confessions. Peeta doesn’t know why he’s telling him all this now, but he’s certainly reevaluating his own situation.

“How did you do it? All these years, all alone. How did you keep going?” Haymitch is silent for a long time and Peeta thinks he’s fallen asleep.

“Hope. I had hope.” 

“That doesn’t help much now. We are going back, at least one of us is going to die. There is no hope.” Haymitch sits up and glares at him.

“No. You’re not dead yet.” He gets up and starts to walk away. His voice drifts back as he merges with the shadows. “There’s always room for hope. Things can always change.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been a bad updater, I know. This chapter was very difficult to write. Peeta is in a dark place mentally, and I needed to do him justice, so it took some time, plus there is very little to work from in the book. Elements of this chapter were inspired by a quell training fic I read ages ago, but I can't seem to find it again. If you recognise it please tell me, I'd love to credit the author.  
> This is the last chapter in the quell training arc, so next chapter will be back to the book and I should progress a bit quicker. (plus more everlark moments to cheer me along!)
> 
> Additionally, I wrote a few outtake scenes that didn't fit, but I posted them on my tumblr. If you want to read them go to iamseemaree and do a search for extraneous.


	21. Volunteer

The days leading up to the reaping are hot and humid, and everyone is glad to taper the training. Peeta has discussed what he’s been reading with Mrs Everdeen, and they made a specific meal plan for this last week, lots and lots of carbs and lean protein. It’s left Peeta feeling heavy and sluggish. But he knows how fast it gets burned off in the arena. So he forces down another serving of chicken with rice and vegetables. 

If he thought he was alone before it’s worse these last few days. With no training to focus on he doesn’t have anything to do but think. He tries to review the games of those Victors who are certain to be reaped, the only male or female from their district, but he doesn’t have the heart to drag Haymitch and Katniss over to watch in their last few days at home, and it’s too much to handle on his own. 

He ends up spending the final days of his life sorting his personal possessions. The house and furnishings will, of course revert to The Capitol upon his death. But his victor winnings up until his death, and everything he’s bought with it is his own to leave to whomever he chooses. 

All the money has already been transferred into trusts, one for his future nieces and nephews, and of course the two he insisted on setting up for the families of Rue and Thresh. (Those ones have never been touched, but he can’t seem to bring himself to close them out.) 

Mostly it’s the artwork. Peeta carefully labels each piece with the name of the person it’s going to. The list isn’t long. Katniss, Haymitch, Tomas and Effie. Once he had many friends, now he can only think of four people that will care if he dies. 

He eats his last dinner alone. 

He knows he would be welcome at the Everdeen’s table. But it would still feel like intruding. He went by the bakery earlier in the day and said his goodbyes to the family, but spending an extended amount of time with them would be more punishment than pleasure. And Haymitch made it clear that he was not taking visitors until tomorrow. 

It feels right somehow. The first night he spent in this house he was entirely alone. And so it is on the last night. He lays on his deck chair on the back porch, and remembers that these things were one of the first purchases he made with his victor money. Sitting here with his brother and watching the sunset is one of the best memories he has of the last year. He needs to get up and find the labels so he can make sure that Tomas knows the chairs are for him. It gives him a warm feeling to imagine Tomas lounging in them and telling his kids wildly exaggerated stories about their Uncle Peeta. If only he could find the energy to move. 

He doesn’t know why he’s startled when Tomas slumps down in the other chair. 

“Hey,” Peeta says, laconically. “I forgot to label them, but these chairs go to you.” Tomas sighs heavily. Every time Peeta has tried to talk to him about distributing his possessions Tomas has dodged the subject. Well, time has run out and he needs to know. 

“It’s simple. Everything’s labeled. Just give it to whoever it says. Please?” And Tomas sighs again. 

“Fine,” he mumbles. Peeta guesses he has to be satisfied with that. 

“Cutting it close with curfew,” he comments, changing the subject. No one cared about curfew until Head Peacekeeper Thread arrived. But now anyone found on the streets after 9:30pm can be put in the stocks.

Tomas shrugs casually. “Oh, I figured I’d just stay here tonight.” 

“And mother is okay with that?” Reaping day is an extremely busy one for the bakery. 

Tomas shrugs again. “I doubt the world will end if I’m a few minutes late.” 

They lie there in silence, not uncomfortable, it’s simply that there is nothing pressing to be said. Peeta is wildly glad his brother showed up. He didn’t know how much he was dreading being alone tonight, until he felt the enormous sense of relief.

“Can you do me a favor,” he asks after a while. “Can you stay here while we’re all gone? I worry about Prim and Mrs Everdeen out here all alone.” 

“You know I can’t do that.” Tomas gives him a pleading look. “You know it. One night, with you getting reaped tomorrow, she’ll let it slide. But days, weeks? You know she’d never stand for it.” Peeta wishes so badly that he could get his brother away from his mother’s control. But when does he ever get what he wants?

“At least come by and check on them, okay? he asks, and Tomas nods. 

They turn in early, even though Peeta knows sleep is out of the question for him. His brother has an early shift, and he knows he’ll stubbornly stay up as late as Peeta does.

He sits in bed and reviews the notebooks again, reassuring himself that the training has been worth it, that he's prepared Katniss well. Looking back at the notes he took on that first fitness test, and then on the last day of heavy training he feels a sense of accomplishment. Katniss and himself have gotten stronger, faster by an impressive amount. Haymitch has made serious inroads on his rampant unhealthiness too. Even Tomas, who was starting to get the bakers belly has leaned out and toughened up.

Still he wonders if there is something more he could’ve done. The thought chases him into his dreams, a confusing mess of Katniss yelling at him for making her eat so much bread and Tomas screaming as he’s cut with a sword. 

It’s 2am when he wakes in terror. He’s surprised at how much sleep he got, but he knows that’s it for the night. He goes downstairs and decides to empty the fridge. By the time Tomas staggers down at 3, Peeta has a box of perishable foods for him to take with him. No point letting it go to waste. He ambles out the back door, telling Peeta that he’ll see him before the reaping. Peeta nods, his eyes on his notebooks again.

He carefully packs them up, along with all the recordings of previous games, and then double checks the labels he’s put on everything, and then for good measure writes out a list of instructions and leaves it for Tomas on the kitchen counter. 

He checks the clock. 8am. Only six more hours to fill.

Upstairs he goes through his closet, deciding what to wear. Every other year he’s worn his best clothes. And he certainly has a lot of fancy clothing to chose from now. But why should he dress up? It’s been so hot, Peeta knows he’ll be sweating in a suit, and why should he bother? What will they do? Kill him? He pulls out a pair of light linen pants and a casual pullover shirt. Decision made he lays the clothes on the bed and checks the clock again. 8:20. 

The silence is driving him crazy. 

Haymitch opens the door at his first knock. They wander into the book room. 

“Any book you have a burning desire to read before you die?” Haymitch asks as Peeta idly flips through a stack.

“I’m just bored.” 

Haymitch barks out a laugh. “Well I can guarantee that things will get more exciting soon.”

The day drags. It’s a relief when Effie shows up, and flitters around his house chattering. He gives her the bags he’s packed and she assures him they’ll be waiting on the train. “So many details to manage!” she chirps, her eyes looking overly bright and her movements quick and stiff. It’s a relief when she leaves.

Finally, finally it’s 1:30 and time to head to the square. Katniss’ family has gone ahead, so it’s just the three of them. Peeta is amused to see they’re as dressed down as he is. Katniss is wearing something that looks like a slightly nicer version of her hunting clothes (probably from the collection Cinna designed for her) and Haymitch appears to have put on the first clean things he could find, a random mismatched shirt and pants. 

When Effie calls Haymitch’s name Peeta doesn’t give himself a chance to think or hesitate. The moment he steps forward the he and Katniss are being hustled straight through the Justice Building to a waiting car and on to the train station. Haymitch and Effie get the same treatment following in a second car. And within minutes the train is pulling out of the station, never to see District Twelve again.

Katniss lingers at the window, long after the district has faded from view, hunched into herself. Surely she didn’t leave her goodbyes for that uncomfortable three minutes in the justice building? Of course she did. She would’ve put off expressing any emotions until the last possible second. And now she looks so heartbroken. 

“We’ll write letters, Katniss,” he says, and she slumps a little more. Apparently the idea of Haymitch delivering their last messages to friends and family isn’t comforting. She walks out and leaves him standing there alone. 

He goes to his own room, pleased to see that Effie has been true to her word and his bags are sitting inside the door. Overwhelmingly exhausted he lies down on the bed. Surprisingly he dozes off, the constantly mounting tension of the day finally taking it’s toll. 

Dinner is conducted in almost silence. Apparently no one told the chef that they’re carb loading for an endurance event, but Peeta’s able to pick and choose appropriate items. Katniss seems to have no such qualms, powering through everything set in front of her. He doesn’t have the heart to call her on it. 

After dinner they settle down to watch the reapings. They come so fast, without the usual pomp and aggrandizement, no comments made about heroism and honor. The events are simply pushed along as fast as possible, just like their own reaping. The show, that has taken an hour in previous years, is over in thirty minutes. It doesn’t bode well for the games themselves. 

Peeta can barely keep up at some points, quickly tagging the reaped and flipping to the next district in his notes. 

When it’s over he goes over the notes more carefully, taking out the pages of the unreaped to put into a second folder. Almost all of them will be mentoring, so the information about them is still useful. 

Peeta looks up to see Katniss hovering uncertainly. Surely she doesn’t expect him to just fall back into bed with her because they’re back on this damn train? But she does. He can see it in her eyes. 

“Why don’t you get some sleep,” he suggests before she can clumsily hint, or force him bodily, or whatever ill conceived plan she has in mind. Because he knows he’d say yes. And he can’t afford to think like that. He’s got to stay focused. The voice in his head squirrels around, trying to convince him that it would be practical, better rest means better arena performance. He tells it to shut up, and distracts himself by collecting the box of games footage from his room and pulling the relevant recordings. 

District One and Two are always the major threat, so he starts with those. Cashmere and Gloss, a brother and sister in their late twenties are the tributes from one. Peeta skips through their games, stopping only to watch their fights. They’re formidable, and like Katniss and himself, are certain to form an unbreakable alliance. He wonders idly if they have a plan for the end, if they’re willing to kill each other to survive. He doubts Snow will be willing to take the risk, there is no way the two of them will be allowed to be the last ones standing. In fact, most of the victors must have formed close bonds with their district partners. The first move of the gamemakers will probably be to try to split up district team mates and kill at least one. Can’t have another suicide attempt rather than a victor after all. He makes a note of the idea, to remind himself to discuss the problem with Haymitch.

Next up is Brutus, he won the year before Haymitch, the forty ninth games, making him about 44 now. But unlike Haymitch, he has kept himself in excellent shape. And he’s probably been training harder than them. (Peeta wonders what he’d think if he knew the book he gave Haymitch has helped them train effectively.) Brutus will probably present more of a threat than the siblings from One, simply because he won’t have the distraction of loyalty. Two has the most number of victors overall, so he probably won’t be as close to his team mate either. He’ll probably be the odd’s on favorite.

Peeta shouldn’t be surprised when Katniss wanders back in. It’s only been an hour and a half, but that’s plenty of time for her to fall asleep and have a nightmare. When she gives him a look of fear and sorrow mingled, the last of the careful space he’s been trying so hard to maintain closes and Peeta can’t help making a wordless offer of comfort. She clings to him, and he rests his head onto her shoulder. He can’t remember why it was so important to separate himself from her, because he’s missed the feel of her in his arms. How did he do without this for so long?

He can’t resist turning his head and tasting her skin, and she presses herself even closer, as if she’s missed him just as much. She smells like home, coal dust and the forest. She must not have used the capitol soaps and scents yet (are they capable of making a product without adding heavy scent?) and he’s so glad he’s getting this one last chance to breathe in the Katniss he loves most. She rubs her head against his a little, as if encouraging him to continue, and maybe he would have, hot wet kisses across her neck and around to her mouth, (of course he would have, the wall’s down now, he’s not backing away) but a movement catches his eye and he looks up to see a train attendant watching them with sad eyes.

It probably doesn’t even occur to the man that this might be private, a moment that’s not intended for an audience, but the idea that the star crossed lovers would prefer privacy would most likely confuse him, so Peeta bites back his sharp words, and disengages from Katniss. She makes a sound of displeasure and tries to hold him in place, until she becomes aware of the watching eyes too.

Once the attendant has arranged the milk Katniss had apparently ordered, and left, still giving them sad looks, Katniss settles on the couch and offers him a cup. She cuddles up next to him, just like they used to, after she injured her foot. It feels like years ago. 

Peeta can almost believe she’s missed this as much as he has. But as always, he can never entirely convince himself. She’s seeking comfort. Like she does. She probably does the same thing with Gale, and Peeta is just an acceptable substitute. 

He lets her choose the next Games to skim, it doesn’t matter to him, his exhausted body is registering her nearness as a cue to relax and sleep, so he’ll probably have to rewatch this tomorrow anyway. 

Until she pulls out Haymitch’s games. He’s known it was there all along, and he’s been curious, but he couldn’t bring himself to watch it alone, and it wasn’t something he was going to ask Haymitch to relive. 

So they watch. It’s sad to see Haymitch looking so young and handsome. He doesn’t look as starved as the seam tributes often do, he looks smart and dangerous, like a threat, and the careers seem to identify him as one. 

Maysilee Donner is a surprise, she looks a lot like Madge. He forgot her aunt had been reaped. No wonder Haymitch can never seem to look directly at her. It must be disturbing to see a near copy of the dead girl walking around the district. 

The spurious reason Katniss gave for watching this was to see if a quell arena is any different, but watching the horrors of the 50th games unfold Peeta is realising that it’s not a terrible idea. Because this arena is different. The place has obviously had so much more work put into it. It actually sort of explains the arena they got last year being so simple and well, normal. Like a piece of wilderness rather than a manufactured environment. Sure they’d encountered some mutts, but almost every plant and animal they’d come across had been natural. Even the tracker jackers weren’t a new muttation, they’ve been around for years. The Gamemakers probably wanted to keep it simple to make the quell arena that much more impressive, plus they must have been funneling all the ‘creativity’ of their arena builders into the 75th, making the 74th almost unexciting.

In Haymitch’s arena it seems like every plant and animal he encounters is mutt. It’s an huge show of wealth and power, which is obviously the point. Peeta wonders how many scientists it took to create it all, and how long it took. 

And a volcano! Peeta can’t believe that even the Capitol has the power to create something like that, he assumes they just chose a location with a volcano already there, and built around it. Although they still would’ve had to figure out how to make it explode on cue, which seems like a complicated thing in itself.

Haymitch had apparently identified it immediately, he’s fine when it erupts, because he was going in the opposite direction to it from almost the first moment he entered the arena, as was Maysilee Donner. For once being from District 12 is useful, since their coal heavy curriculum does briefly cover volcanos as a sort of side note in geology. 

He’s distracted by on screen Haymitch breaking through the thicket at the end of the arena. And with it goes any vague hope Peeta had of ever escaping the arena, because it’s surrounded by a powerful force field, like the one on the training center roof. 

When Haymitch breaks his alliance with Maysilee, and then she dies almost immediately, Peeta can’t help but seeing them as himself and Katniss, her risking herself to save him, but unlike Katniss, Haymitch fails, gets there too late, and it almost breaks him. And Peeta finally understands why Katniss was willing to go to the feast for him, because in the strange narrow focus that the arena forces your mind to, losing your ally is in some ways worse than dying yourself. At least if you’re dead the suffering stops.

How will Katniss ever handle his death in there? He needs to think about that. He makes a carefully cryptic note on it, hoping she not paying attention, that she doesn’t know what he’s thinking.

And then comes the final battle, the big moment that it’s all been building up to. And Haymitch uses the force field, the huge symbol of the Capitol’s ultimate power over the people, to kill his opponent. 

“It’s almost as bad as us with the berries,” Katniss whispers, and Peeta has to agree. 

“Almost, but not quite,” comes Haymitch’s voice from behind the couch. Peeta looks back at him nervously. How long has he been standing there? Is he angry? Nope. Drinking though. Peeta sighs. He’d really hoped that after months of sobriety that Haymitch might have kicked the habit. No such luck. At least it’s wine, not liquor. 

After their day, and then watching Haymitch’s games Peeta is exhausted in every way, so when Katniss takes his hand and leads him to her bed he doesn’t even have to think before getting in beside her. In the end she always gets what she wants from him. And if what she wants, here in this moment, is him? Peeta can no longer say no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the Everlark moment was worth the long wait!  
> I felt like Peeta would've taken a much more analytical view of Haymitch's games, since he was busy collecting data from all the other games.  
> As always, I long to here what you think, so do tell!


End file.
